


Hellenikon

by asktheravens



Category: Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Ancient Greece, Athens, Bullying, Coming of Age, Divination, Infanticide, M/M, Marathon, No Underage Sex, Persian Wars, Premonitions, Sparta - Freeform, The Iliad References, Thermopylae, subtle supernatural elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 17:35:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16917315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asktheravens/pseuds/asktheravens
Summary: In the years before the Battle of Marathon, the Oracle of Delphi delivers a prophecy to two powerful men from rival city states. Their sons, strangers now, must be as brothers, and bind their families together. They will take turns hosting, and Loki of Athens, son of Laufey, will be the first to make the journey. He travels to meet prince Thor, and begin a fated relationship that will last throughout a turbulent period of Greek history, from the Battle of Marathon to the climax of the Greco-Persian War.Epic in scope, this story has been years in the making and is not yet finished, but I wanted to show you all what I have.





	1. Prologue: Delphi 488 BCE

**Author's Note:**

> The characters are underage (about 14) but there is no sexual content beyond having a crush, at least at this point.
> 
> This work is for nightwalker, who got me into this, and to Mari, if she's still watching, or even if she isn't.
> 
> There are some dark themes in this, so tread carefully, but I'm not sure how to warn for it, or if I want to since much of it would be spoilers. I have it outlined all the way to the end, and I hope I will finish it.
> 
> Bonus points to anyone who gets the multi-layered joke that is the title. (It's explained in the end notes!)

_There the lord Phoebus Apollo resolved to make his lovely temple, and thus he said:_

_“In this place I am minded to build a glorious temple to be an oracle for men, and here they will always bring perfect hecatombs, both they who dwell in rich Peloponnesus and the men of Europe and from all the wave-washed isles, coming to question me. And I will deliver to them all counsel that cannot fail, answering them in my rich temple."_

_-Homeric Hymn to Apollo, lines 289-294, Anonymous_

English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, 1914

 

Delphi, 488 BCE

 

He had made the required sacrifices and said the required words; King Odin of Sparta grew weary of waiting.It would not do to rush the works of the gods, however, so he stood like an Atlas balancing the burden of his wasted time across his wide shoulders as the petty priests— bureaucrats in holy form— scurried about and did not call his name.He held his head still and endured the ache of his empty, still healing eye socket.When he judged he was not watched, he turned just barely to see if the other lines of prophecy seekers were moving.They were not.Helios’ chariot continued its progress across the sky and the day turned from the cool dewy damp of dawn to the dusty heat of afternoon and still Odin waited, for what he couldn’t imagine (for he was not an imaginative man), but he refused to disgrace himself by asking.

A prophetess emerged from the sanctum, the first he’d seen, but he feigned disinterest.Her face was veiled, her eyes painted dark with kohl and picked out with intricate patterns of shimmering mica.

“Odin of Sparta,” she said in a low, imperious voice.“The Pythia will see you now.”She did not wait for him, only turned and disappeared into the Pythia’s chamber, leaving Odin to make rather unseemly haste to get in before he was shut out and had to begin again the next morning.

His eye took a moment to adjust from the bright sunlight outside to the almost total darkness of the Oracle’s sanctuary.Torches flickered on the walls, throwing the only light in the stifling round chamber.Attendants fed laurel leaves into glowing iron braziers at the edges of the circle, leaving him nearly choking on the acrid, foreign stench of them and another, less definable but still foul odor that permeated the room.The Pythia herself sat on her three-legged stool on a raised dais in the center.She was heavily veiled in many layers of robes, swaying alarmingly from side to side, moaning and chanting and muttering into her muffling layers.She could have been any age, though Odin had expected her to be old.Her body and limbs, what he could make out of them, were still supple and strong.A great statue of Apollo loomed above her, fashioned in the old style with a stiff pose and the blank, serene smile of a madman.The whole effect was quite sinister; Odin longed to get his advice and be gone.He might have questioned taking advice from such a person in the first place, but he’d been raised a devout man. 

A door opened on the other side of the circle, letting in a few seconds of blinding daylight.Odin was distracted when the light revealed a great crack in the floor, the stone worked to follow the line of a great chasm that ran beneath the temple.This seemed to be the source of the unknown foul smell, a vent that went down all the way to Hades.Odin made a gesture to ward off evil without even thinking about it, his composure cracking for the first time.No wonder everyone in this place had gone mad.

His prophetess continued to stand before him, still as Apollo herself, as a pair of echoey footsteps approached around the center dais.Another priestess in identical dress and makeup came to stand behind his, and another man stood next to him.He was a full handspan taller than Odin himself, gaunt and hollow-cheeked, his hair pure white but thick as it lay over his narrow shoulders.He turned a curious, if unimpressed, look to him and Odin found the man was no older than he was.

“Laufey of Athens.Odin of Sparta.The Pythia is ready to speak.”

“Priestess,” Odin rumbled, no longer able to constrain himself, “This is highly irregular.This was to be a private reading.There must be some mistake.”

“No mistake, Son of Bor.The Pythia chooses to speak to you together.”

“But my question concerns…”

“Apollo Delphi cares nothing for your concerns, Querent.Though you are free to go, and the temple thanks you for your offering.”Odin subsided at that, though he glared at this Laufey of Athens with his smirk on his face and travel dust on his clothes as though he had not waited at all for the Oracle.At some unseen cue the attendants and other priestesses began a low, wordless chant.The poor light and overwhelming smell were giving Odin a headache, and even the empty socket seemed to be trying to water in sympathy with his remaining eye.The Pythia let out a wordless, ululating scream, startling Odin half out of his skin, and he was gratified to see Laufey jump at the same time.The two prophetesses stepped down to stand at the Oracle’s shoulders and listened closely to catch all of her incoherent muttering as she writhed in the grip of the god.

Sweat ran down the back of Odin’s neck as he stood in awkward silence next to the Athenian.He was not sure if he was allowed to speak, and though he couldn’t resist eavesdropping he heard only gibberish from the woman on the stool.Laufey also looked as if he would prefer to get what he came for (even if it was not what he came for) with less carrying on and production, his cold grey eyes flashing with impatience.The Oracle’s babble wound down at last and the two prophetai returned to them.

“Are you prepared for your answer, Querents?It will not be repeated.”Again without visible cue the chanting stopped and the two men nodded, slow and serious.

“Combine the great riches of your houses, make of yourselves one treasury.Let the union of stag and owl be a votive pleasing to the gods and both your cities will know their favor.”They returned to the Pythia and attendants appeared to lead them back out.It was clear their audience was over, never mind that Odin had not gotten to ask anything about the revolt he feared was brewing in Messenia.

He found himself blinking in the bright sunlight, still next to the Athenian, plague take him.He was at least grateful to be out of the sanctuary, his head clearing and the breeze cooling his brow.

“The house of Laufey will honor the will of the gods,” the Athenian told him, his voice cold and arresting as the north wind.

“As will the house of Odin!If we can determine what their will is.That was both more and less clear than I expected.When my father sent me to ask if I should marry my wife, I got something about rabbits and did not even know if it was a positive or negative answer.”

“How did you determine what would please the gods?” Laufey’s voice was a drawl, more mocking than curious.

“I told my father I would marry her because I liked the look of her and I was tired of deliberating.Seems to have worked out well.”Odin smiled with vague affection for his bride.“What did the Oracle mean?What is your greatest treasure?”

“My youngest son,” Laufey said with finality, like he’d decided on the answer as soon as he’d heard the interpreter speak for the Oracle.“And yours?”

“My eldest.”

“Then they must be made as brothers.Send your boy to live in Athens.”

“That is not our way.Spartans don’t…mingle.We don’t travel.Send yours to Sparta.”

“Let us take turns, then.I will send Loki to you first, and he will be as your own until the summer ends.Then you will send your son the next summer.Our houses will be bonded by ties of guest friendship and our cities will have favor.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Nor I.But have you any better ideas?”Odin found he hadn’t, and the rhythm of Laufey’s voice rising and falling had made boarding a strange man’s son, and sending him his own golden Thor, sound so reasonable that he was shaking Laufey’s cool, pale, long-fingered hand in agreement before he knew it.As the tall Athenian strode away, Odin wondered how in the gods’ names he was supposed to explain this to Frigga.


	2. Sparta, 489 BCE

_Mother tells me,_

_the immortal goddess Thetis with her glistening feet,_

_that two fates bear me on to the day of death._

_If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy, my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies._

_If I voyage back to the fatherland I love, my pride, my glory dies ..._

_but the life that's left me will be long, the stroke of death will not come on me quickly._

 

_The Iliad, Book 9, Lines 498-505_

_Translated by Robert Fagles_

 

Sparta, 489 BCE

 

Loki thought the summer was already half over when the ox cart stopped in front of the inn.His brother Helblindi reined in his rented mare next to him and snorted.Two days ago they’d come to port at Gythium, and since then they had been bumping along the grassy wheel ruts that passed for roads down here.They hadn’t seen more than four miserable little huts together in all of Laconia.This inn was the most promising thing he’d seen since Athens, at least, though it was too early to stop for the day.The road continued up the hill before him to a few other buildings, even one that looked like a temple. All of Sparta, such as it was, speed over the peaks of four hills, crouching in the shade of the high mountain that dominated the skyline.

“Why are we stopping here?” his brother asked the oddly dressed driver.It was too hot for furs and his strange cap didn’t keep the sun out of his eyes.“We are supposed to be going to King Odin’s palace.”Helblindi spoke slowly and loudly.Loki thought, privately, that the people here could understand them just fine, despite the accents, they just weren’t inclined to show it.

A cow lowed somewhere in the distance.The driver turned and spat into the grass.

“There,” he said, hooking his thumb at the inn.He didn’t seem inclined to elaborate, either, only to wait like a stone for his passenger to vacate the cart.Loki looked uncertainly at his brother.He’d expected something out of his brothers’ tales of Persia and Crete, or at least Homer.He knew of tailors in Athens with larger, nicer houses than this.An ancient, evil-eyed goose pecking listlessly at the grass in the forecourt noticed them.He set up an asthmatic honking and shook his wings at Loki, clearly an excellent omen and summary of his time thus far in Laconia.Even the unflappable Blindi seemed taken aback to leave him here.

“This is King Odin’s palace?” he asked.The driver nodded.Loki gathered his traveling case and tried to stretch his legs and Blindi’s horse danced nervously as the goose continued to make its racket.A naked, tow headed little boy appeared in the doorway.He waved to them and called “Mama, strangers!” into the house, then tackled the goose in a giggling hug.It made a sound like an oboe being stepped on and subsided as the child petted it.

“Father led me to believe he’d be…older.” Loki whispered to his brother.Blindi nodded to him in agreement, communicating with only his eyes that these foreigners were clearly all mad and he intended to watch the show.A woman emerged next, handsome and fair-haired, her simple dress gathered at one shoulder and fastened with a plain golden pin.

“Balder?What are you doing, pet?” She gathered the little boy and goose both into her arms, and Loki could see the play of muscles in her shoulders.

“Strangers!” he called again, pointing.She turned and looked their little group over, the Laconian rustic on his cart, Helblindi tall, thin, and pale as their father, and finally Loki with his dark hair and travel case.

“You must be my husband’s Athenian guests,” she said.She set her son and his pet down and dusted her hands off.“I am sorry, we weren’t sure when to expect you.Please, come in.I am Frigga, the wife of King Odin, and this is our son Balder.”

“Pleased to meet you, Lady,” Blindi said.He dismounted and tied his mare to the fence for lack of anywhere better.“I am Helblindi, son of Laufey of Athens, and this is my brother Loki,” He shoved a sharp elbow into Loki’s thigh.

“Pleased to meet you,” Loki managed to mumble.The queen was nearly as tall as his brother, and Loki had never in his life had to greet a married woman.Blindi whisked his case out of his hands and Loki, who had wanted nothing more than to get out of the stinking, lurching ox cart for two days, found he was now reluctant to put his feet on the ground. The driver lumbered off this seat and deposited Loki’s trunk on the dusty ground. Helblindi flashed the woman- the queen, it seemed- a charming smile, and pressed an owl-stamped silver drachma in the driver’s hand.The man’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly and he nodded, climbed back up, and slapped the reins over the ox, the cart lurching away before anyone could change their mind.

“Looks like this is the place,” Blindi said, pitched for Loki alone.“Have a lovely summer, little brother.Could you try to be less embarrassing?”Loki shot him a glare full of venom promising dire retribution.

“Will you stay and dine with us?” she asked.Women were always reluctant to see his brother leave, he’d found.

“Sadly no, much as I would like to enjoy your hospitality, I must get back to Gythium, as the captain indicated he wouldn’t wait for me overlong.Farewell, Loki!I will return for you in the autumn.”Blindi ruffled his hair and smirked at him before he mounted and, after exchanging a few more pleasantries with the queen of Sparta, rode away.

 

“Welcome to Sparta, Loki,” the queen told him.He’d never been alone with a woman, not since Father dismissed his nurse.He wasn’t now, either, he noticed.The little boy giggled at him from behind his mother’s skirt and the ancient goose settled back into the sunny herb patch with a final wheezing honk.

“Thank you,” he said.He tried for his brother’s fluid bow and charming smile.

“My son isn’t home yet,” she told him, “But we can get you settled in.You must think of this as your home while you are here.Thor is very excited to finally meet you.”The queen herself hefted his trunk over her shoulder and gestured for him to follow.She led him through the low, wide door into a dim entry room, deserted in the middle of the day, and out another door into the central courtyard.He followed her up a flight of splintery stairs and into a pleasant bedroom that belonged in a remote rural inn.An old bed sat under the wide window and a simple clothes chest loomed to the ceiling, but otherwise there was nothing in the room to tell him who lived here.He wondered if they’d had to put him in the slave quarters.

“This is Thor’s room,” his hostess continued.Balder halted at the threshold and looked in, wide eyed, at his brother’s room.“You’ll be here, with him.I’ll have someone bring you some water to wash up.Feel free to look around.”She smiled at him, lovely as breaking dawn, and stroked a hand lightly over his hair.“I know it’s not much like your home, but I hope you will come to like it here.Come on, pet, stop staring.”Frigga turned and left and Loki sat on the bed for lack of anything better to do.Laufey had warned him that country people sometimes shared a bed with their guests, but he hadn’t expected it to be the case for the actual royal family.He still had a deepening bruise on the back of his thigh from where he’d shared with Helblindi on the way here; his brother had a wicked kick when he dreamed.

A slave brought a pitcher of water and some soft cloths, then bowed her head and backed out of the room.Loki took off his dirty traveling clothes and scrubbed his face, then poured the rest of the cool water over his head to get some of the dust out of his hair.He wondered if he would get a proper wash any time between now and autumn.He changed into a fresh chiton and, after some debate, fastened his mother’s silver owl pin at his right shoulder.He’d kept it concealed while they traveled, but he wanted to make a good impression on his host.If he wanted his mother’s aid, or that of her patron goddess, that would only be understandable, he thought.

The queen had said he could go where he liked and he didn’t want to sit in the bare room any more, or think about sharing the narrow bed with a stranger, so he went down the stairs and set off to explore the yard.The late afternoon heat had yet to loosen its grip on Laconia, and it beat down on him without mercy.He walked past the fragrant herb garden and beds of flowers, inhaling the mixed scents of cut grass, manure, and baking bread.He’d always found it relaxing to walk the streets of Athens and listen to the lives and work going on around him, but today he couldn’t stop wondering how far away his brother had gotten, because he knew not a soul for miles.He longed to go for a run, but he didn’t want to be any more flushed and sweaty than necessary when the prince finally turned up.

 

Their meeting was not long off, and no matter what the Oracle had said, it was not to be an auspicious one. The prince of Sparta leapt out of a tree and knocked Loki to the ground.The sound of an owl when it was not yet dusk had lured Loki to Thor’s hiding place, but all he’d gotten was a flash of bright hair and pain as the Spartan lunatic landed on him and locked him in an expert pin.Loki’s head hit the dusty earth and his jaw clicked shut.White rushing noise filled his mind for a moment as he lay stunned, and when he opened his eyes he knew the truth of the Oracle’s words.He could see a boy his age, bright blue eyes in his freckled face and that Apollo-touched mane, but a vision overlaid the reality.More vivid than life, figures flitted before him: blood swirling in river water, the sea bristling with a huge fleet of warships, spilled wine, the carcass of a boar, and above it all a young man, beautiful and deadly, lowering a plumed Corinthian helmet over his grim face.Each fleeting portent filled him with dread, none more so than the last, and he found he was murmuring Homer under his breath, the very opening lines of the poem he had committed to memory before he had even started school: Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, great fighter’ souls, but made their body carrion, feasts for the dogs and birds, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.”

Worse than his throbbing head or skinned elbows, a phantom pain shot through his chest, sweet and piercing at once, and just as quickly began to fade.The mythical hero faded into the Spartan boy who straddled his waist and looked down on him with confused disappointment.Loki of Athens was in love, and it hurt.

“Did I hit you too hard?” Thor asked.He had the drawling Laconian accent that was so hard to understand.

“Why?” Loki managed to gasp.He wasn’t even really speaking to Thor, more to the gods themselves.

“Wanted to see what you would do,” Thor said.“See how you fight.”He got up easily and held a hand out to help him up.“You’re Loki, right?”

“That’s right.You must be Thor…”He accepted the hand and Thor pulled him up, but instead of helping him to his feet he kept going, pulling him past his center of balance and flinging Loki against the ground again.He sprang back and landed in a ready crouch, waiting for Loki to come back at him with an eager grin.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Loki wheezed.As he lay there groaning in the dust, the joy drained from Thor’s face.He rose and came to stand over Loki, looking down as he slowly got to his feet with a critical eye as though he, too, were silently asking the gods “Why?’.“Do you try to kill everyone you meet?”

“Not trying to kill you,” Thor scoffed.“Father said you were destined to be my shield brother.I thought you would be…” Thor made a gesture with his hands that expressed his belief that Loki would be _more_ , that he found him lacking in every possible dimension.“I thought you would be taller,” he finished with a shrug.Loki had a pretty speech prepared for when he met the Spartan prince, one he’d worked on for months, but the reality of him, standing before him with his long golden hair in tangles, his chest and feet bare and his coarse red chiton spattered with mud, made the words wither in his mouth. He smoothed his tunic and dusted off his chiton, checking to make sure his mother’s silver owl was still pinned at the shoulder

 

He led Loki back a different way, pointing to things and giving one or two words description as they went.Loki quickly absorbed the location of the bath house, the kitchen, and the women’s quarters, and paid careful attention to any way to sneak out of the building at night.Thor stopped by the bath house and pumped cool water over himself, then shook it from his hair.When they returned to his room he looked at the bed with distaste and stripped his wrap off without a hint of shame, his back to Loki as he selected something clean from the clothes chest.Loki stood, awkward, and lost himself studying Thor’s skin, the all over warm gold of someone who went naked out of doors, and the sprinkling of freckles across his buttocks that matched the ones on his nose.Blood rose to his face and he forced his eyes out the window until Thor was decent again.He’d attended the gymnasium every day for years and he’d never noticed another boy like that.He both hoped and feared another vision of the gorgeous Achilles every time he looked at Thor.

Thor led him across the central courtyard to a low ceilinged dining room where a massive table stood, places laid for only four out of the two dozen that could fit.The wide windows caught the faint breath of an evening breeze scented with cooking, but it was still stifling indoors.Someone had painted the walls about a century ago, plain red with a blocky black border, and no one had ever changed it. 

“Thor!”Balder burst through the door that led into the kitchens and charged for his older brother.“You’re home!”

“Hey little squirrel,” Thor said.He caught the boy under the shoulders and hefted him over his head and spun him as he shrieked and giggled.He dropped Balder back down into a hug and ruffled his hair.

“Again!” Balder called, and Thor complied with a grin, tossing his brother nearly to the ceiling and catching him neatly.

“Thor, don’t get him started,” Frigga chided from the doorway, but her smile was all indulgence.

“Mama said there was a surprise for dinner!”Balder wrapped his chubby arms around Thor’s neck and hugged him.

“That’s right.While our guest is here Thor will have more time to spend at home.”A look passed between Thor and his mother, then; Thor wanted to speak but she kept him quiet with just the hard line of her mouth.“Your father won’t be able to join us tonight, so why don’t you stand in as the host?”Thor set Balder on the floor and scooted him toward their mother.When he stood back up, his whole bearing had changed.His back and shoulders formed a rigid, military line, and the laughter went out of his eyes, replaced with a cool seriousness.

“Loki of Athens, please be welcome in our home,” Thor said with a stiff, formal little bow.He stood behind the head seat of the table and pulled out the couch to his right.Loki still couldn’t believe that Thor’s mother was going to eat with them, but their ages left him and Thor in a strange place between being men and children.He sat in the place reserved for honored guests and tried not to laugh at how pompous his host was being in a room with a woman, a little child, and a foreigner.

“Thank you, Prince Thor of Sparta.I gratefully accept your hospitality.” Loki made his words honey-sweet and hoped Thor couldn’t hear the hint of mockery in them.Strange how Thor wanted to play the king now and welcome him when not so long ago he’d been assaulting him from a tree.

“This is my mother, Queen Frigga, and my brother Balder,” Thor told him.“My honored father King Odin will meet you later.”They were soon seated and slaves brought out a rich if not extravagant meal of chicken with lentils and heavy bread.Loki ate to be polite but found when food touched his lips that he was starving after his long trip, and then forced himself to eat more slowly.Thor ate like someone was about to take his food away and even when not inhaling chicken he left the dinner conversation to his mother. 

“We’ve been so looking forward to meeting you,” she told him, “How are your parents?”

“Father is well.He will be Archon in the fall.” Loki said cautiously.He’d been warned that the Spartans might be hoping he’d have a loose tongue, but he doubted there was anything he could tell them.

“Is that your king?” Thor asked, though Loki could barely understand him.Grease glistened on his fingers and he looked at Loki with interest for the first time since he’d failed to fight back by the tree.

“No.Athens has no king.”Loki had been raised that there could be nothing more distasteful than a king.“My father was elected Archon.”He couldn’t imagine trying to explain Athenian democracy to Thor, any more than he would try to explain it to the wall behind him.

“And your mother?” Frigga prompted.Thor returned to his chicken, and Loki felt he’d failed to meet his expectations again when being the Archon’s son should be more impressive than a king.After all, being archon was far more than an accident of birth.

“My mother died when I was a baby.Father never remarried.”Thor looked at him for just a moment and then went back to eating, but Loki had seen the flash of pity in his eyes.“People try to get him to, all the time, but he isn’t interested.”Laufey in fact rarely mentioned Loki’s mother, but he’d sacrificed a lot of status to wed Farbauti of Macedon in the first place, though even Loki had heard the rumors that she’d been a witch or worse.

“You must miss your brothers,” Frigga said.“It’s a shame Thor missed out on meeting Helblindi.He seemed most charming.”Loki had no doubt Thor would have preferred to spend the summer with Helblindi, or even Byleistr.They were both cast in their father’s image, lanky and shrewd, with his nearly white hair and stormy grey eyes.

“Of course,” Loki lied.They took little notice of him, most of the time, and he would not miss their sharp tongues and rough hands.

Frigga seemed to sense his discomfort and turned the conversation to bland and safe topics; the heat, the house, his studies.At last the slaves brought the last course, a round scoop of soft cheese drizzled in honey and a bowl of pomegranates.Loki felt tired and wished for his own airy room over their garden back home.He picked apart his fruit and felt like Persephone, condemned to spend a whole season in this awful place.

He felt Thor’s gaze on him and looked up to find him slurping pomegranate pulp, but he watched Loki with a shy almost-smile in his eyes.Loki fixated on his callused fingers dripping dark juice, and for a moment the room swam and he saw an older Thor, staring at his bloody hands in horror, and the vision cramped his chest with fear.

Something tugged at his chiton and startled him back to reality.Balder looked up at him imploringly and, when Loki didn’t stop him, climbed into his lap.He offered Loki a heavy wooden horse, nearly clipping him in the jaw, and Loki wasn’t sure what else to do but take it.The boy then looked from him to the toy and back and Loki realized he’d lost track of how many times he’d disappointed a Spartan today.Loki took his dessert, barely touched, and offered it to Balder.Loki got the impression that Thor’s little brother was not accustomed to getting extra food, not with a sibling who ate like the Harpy Celaeno, and he accepted the sweet with a religious reverence.He cuddled against Loki’s side, smearing a glob of honey on him in the process.

“Do you know any stories?” Balder asked him in a tone that implied this was the last thing required for Loki to ascend to divine status.

“Balder, don’t bother our guest.I’m sure Loki is tired and it’s getting dark.”

“Please? I’ve heard all the others.”

“I don’t mind,” Loki told her.He began describing Athens, watching the ships in the harbor from the high walls, the bright-painted temples on the Acropolis, philosophers arguing in the Agora, but soon moved to the story of Theseus and the Minotaur.He glossed over mad Pasiphae fucking the bull but realized that the story still lay before him full of cannibalism and death.Still, his Spartan audience seemed enthralled, even Thor listening with dreamy intensity while absently scraping the last bit of fruit out of Loki’s undefended pomegranate.

Just as Ariadne went to Daedalus for advice, the horse slipped from Balder’s grasp and fell to the floor with a clatter.He jerked a little against Loki and murmured sleepily.The sun had set outside as Loki spoke and only the indigo dimness of twilight lit the room.Thor and Frigga both started and looked guilty.

“You have a real gift with words,” Frigga told him.“You must finish for us another evening.”She rose to gather up her sleeping son, but Thor stopped her.

“I’ll take him, Mother,” he told her.His face was closed off as he gently took Balder from Loki’s side, leaving a sudden chill where his warmth had been, but when the little boy wrapped his drowsy arms around his brother’s neck Loki saw his whole demeanor soften, a hint of a smile on his lips.He whispered something too low for Loki to hear into his brother’s tousled honey brown hair as he carried him out of the dining room.

“He doesn’t get to come home very often any more,” Frigga told him.She watched her sons for a fond moment before she rose.Two female slaves began clearing the table.“The gods have blessed me, but sometimes I wish one of them had been a daughter, one I wouldn’t have to give up.”Loki felt a surge of envy, a wish that he could be Thor, and a faint budding desire to have Thor for himself at the same time.“Can you find your way back?”She asked him.She seemed to realize that she had been telling him more than she should.“I know this place can be confusing.”

“I’m fine,” he told her.“I can find my way back.”

“Then I bid you goodnight,” she said formally.“Thor will join you soon.”

He found his way back to the courtyard, and from there to the stairs to the second floor.He made his way up by starlight, though he could see lamps or torches elsewhere in the palace.The room seemed no less empty than it had that afternoon, though his trunk now sat at the foot of the bed.He couldn’t face sleeping nude with the Spartan prince, so he stripped down to his linen shift and waited on the bed.Laconia at night seemed kinder; the breeze through the window had a kiss of cool mountain air in it and the scent of dew and the sound of goats in the distance were a softer accompaniment than he was used to in Athens, where even their quiet side street bustled late into the night.

“How do you like it?” Thor asked.Loki startled out of his reverie, surprised that the Spartan could move so quietly.He leaned against the doorframe and the darkness made him seem older.

“Sparta, you mean?It’s…” Loki struggled to think of something he could say about this place.“It’s like something out of Homer,” he finished.He said it to keep from saying “it is backward and harsh and your mother acts like a prostitute, but a kind one”.He didn’t mean it as a compliment but it sounded like one to Thor.At home he would have flayed Thor raw with his tongue but he couldn’t help wanting to impress the prince, to see him smile again.He felt flushed all over and taut as a bowstring thinking of Thor’s body next to his in the narrow bed, and he was glad of the poor light.

“You’ll have to come with me tomorrow, if you’re going to be one of us.”Thor sounded skeptical.

“To school?”Loki knew Spartan school was likely different from his own, but he was good at school.Very good.

“Something like,” Thor said with a hint of a laugh.Loki wondered if he had a private tutor since he was the prince.He made no move to join Loki, and the moment that stretched between them in the dark seemed awkward to him but not, apparently, to Thor.

“Which…um, which side of the bed did you want?”He hated the way he stammered when trying to talk to Thor.

“Neither,” the prince said.He dismissed the bed, and Loki himself, with a wave of contempt.“That’s for you.Mother thought you might be used to it.”Thor didn’t sneer, either too well bred or too stoic, but his nose did crinkle just a bit.Loki had another strange contradictory desire to both punch and kiss it, but instead he hunched into his bed.His cheeks burned with a disappointment he didn’t want to analyze.Thor stepped into the room and stripped off the odd wrap he wore at the waist.He shook out the rust colored, thin piece of wool onto the floor and lay down on it nude, then arranged his crossed arms behind his head for a pillow.He turned to look at Loki as though he could feel the weight of his stare, and Loki scrambled to get under his own scratchy blanket.Thor murmured something, just a few words, as he got settled.Loki didn’t hear what he said, but he picked up a musical, archaic lilt to his accent that wasn’t present in his regular speaking voice.

“What did you say?” Loki’s curiosity got the better of him, as it often did.

“A prayer,” Thor told him.“I asked Artemis to guide me.”He didn’t elaborate on what he needed divine guidance for, but Loki thought it was about him and his failure somehow.

“Oh.Well, I hope you sleep well.”

“I will.”Thor seemed puzzled by pleasantries but realized more was required.“You as well,” he said.He rolled away from Loki and wrapped his scant bedding over his shoulders.Loki was determined not to stare anymore.He thought sleep would never come, especially not sleeping in a strange place, but the bed cradled him and the peaceful night outside soothed him.Hypnos stole him away from Sparta and he dreamed of a dark-feathered owl with his mother’s green eyes.

 

Thor woke him by tossing a length of wool on his face.Loki sat up and pulled it away, but he was confused when the darkness didn’t go away with it.

“Come on,” Thor said.“Mother found you some Spartan clothes.”

“It’s dark,” Loki said.Even his father waited for sunrise.

“Not for long.We do not want to be late.”Loki tried to shake the sleep fog from his mind as he shrugged out of his tunic and tried to figure out the Spartan wrap.The cloth was worn soft and pungent with the sharp smell of a clothes chest, and he wondered if it had been Thor’s.Once he stood up, Thor gave him only moments to puzzle over the wrap before he took it and did it himself, making sure it was secure.“There.I’ll show you how later.” Thor said, not unkindly, and tugged Loki toward the door.He wanted very much to put on his mother’s pin, but there seemed no time to ask about it now.His dreams, though only vaguely remembered, made him feel he needed her protection more than ever.

“Wait!Won’t I need my tablet and stylus, at least?” He thought of how bemused his father had been when he insisted on bringing his school bag to Laconia, and he dreaded Thor’s empty hands.

“What for?” Thor asked him.

“For writing?”What did they do, scratch in the dirt like farm animals and peasants?

“No.”Thor turned and left, and Loki chased his silent footsteps down the stairs.

“Don’t you at least read and declaim?What about rhetoric and sums…and philosophy?”Loki didn’t even like sums but he would have clung to them like a lost friend at this point.

“We have slaves for that if it’s necessary,” Thor said without slowing.His tone indicated he didn’t think it likely.

Thor strode through the door as the vaguest hint of rose crept over the horizon, and Loki trotted to keep up with him.Frigga stopped him with a hand on his chest and Loki was conscious of how out of place he looked, how the Spartan wrap only served to highlight his thin, pale legs, but she only offered him a conspiratorial smile.She pressed a half round of heavy bread smeared with soft cheese into his hand and held a finger up to her lips for silence.He wasn’t sure why breakfast would be secret, but he trailed behind Thor until he’d eaten and brushed the crumbs off.Thor never looked back as he led Loki through the pre-dawn darkness of Sparta proper.Loki wanted to slow down and get a good look at the city, but few people stirred this early and he got only the impression of hunched, archaic buildings and small squares.The breeze brought more familiar smells to him, damp stone and sewage and smoke, along with the faint ringing of a far-off forge.City smells, though he missed the sea breeze of Athens.

“Who lives here?” he asked Thor.

“ _Perioikoi_ ,” Thor said.“Tradesmen and merchants.Not Spartans.”

“Are they foreigners?”Athens had lots of non citizen foreigners.

“No.They aren’t soldiers.Every Spartan is noble, and every Spartan is a soldier.”

They continued on in silence until they spotted a group of boys waiting for them in the pre-dawn dark. Loki’s heart surged in his chest, fearing a threat, but Thor greeted them with clasped hands before turning to introduce him.

 

“Loki, these are my warriors,” Thor told him.He looked so solemn that Loki nearly laughed, but he kept it behind his lips for once.“They are in my age group and their fathers all had noble blood.This is Fandral the Swift,” he said.A tall, fair boy with haughty hazel eyes smirked down at him and nodded.“Hogun the Stoic.Volstagg the Voluminous.”Hogun looked much older, short and broad, and didn’t even shift his head in acknowledgement.Volstagg stood a handspan taller than even Thor and though his face was still round with baby fat glints of reddish beard stood out on his jaw.“This is Loki of Athens,” Thor continued.“I told you about him.”

“Nice of Laufey to send you his prettiest daughter,” Fandral said.“But wasn’t it a shield brother the gods promised your father?”

“Yeah, where’s the great warrior you’ve been telling us about?Thought he was supposed to replace us all.” Volstagg and Fandral’s sharp eyes mocked him, but Hogun only looked bored.

“Why, are you scared he’ll find me prettier than you?” Loki shot back.He immediately wished he had kept his mouth shut, but he kept going.“I don’t even want to take him away from you, so it’s pathetic that you all are already so jealous.”He couldn’t believe Thor was such an idiot that he’d gotten his friends to hate Loki before they even met him, and from the looks on their faces he’d called it too close to home for them.They didn’t want to be replaced by some foreigner, even if it was the will of the gods.

“He’s all right,” Thor said.“He’s Athenian.”He said that like ‘he’s crazy, you can’t expect him to behave properly’ but Loki could still read the embarrassment in Thor’s face.“Come on,” he said.“It’s time to start.”

The boys in their age group trained in a broad, sloping field down hill from a squat wooden temple.The pale light of dawn let Loki pick out the outlines of terra-cotta figures and decorations, all smiling in their sphinx like way.It looked like the oldest temples on the Acropolis, the ones more concerned with tradition than fashion, but unlike anything in Athens it had a long open precinct behind the main sanctuary and a half dozen short posts outside, thick and ominously scarred.The Eurotas, Sparta’s eastern boundary, ran a few hundred yards down the hill.Its scent came on the moist morning breeze and the sound of the water made a constant background noise.

“Artemis Orthia,” Thor told him, and latched onto his arm to pull him along.Loki recognized Artemis, of course, but he’d never heard of Artemis Orthia.She must be Spartan, and therefor unsympathetic to Loki.He wanted to ask, but Thor and his warriors had already reached the training grounds.A long grassy track surrounded the sandy exercise ring; other than the barbaric lack of anything other than some crude wooden benches, it was very similar to the gymnasium back home.They joined the other boys on the track in a loping jog.Unlike in Athens, where everyone ran at his own pace, it seemed the goal here in Sparta was to fall into step with the others.No one spoke to him, though a few nodded at Thor and many turned curious eyes on him.He lifted his head, unconcerned with their thoughts, and ran at their pace.He could keep this up as long as they could, he was sure.No one ever beat him at home, not even men twice his age.Blood sang through him as his muscles warmed up and he relaxed.

It might have gone differently if he’d been content to run at the back and make himself invisible, but the son of proud Laufey chose to stay at the front.He held his head high and displaced whoever usually ran at Thor’s left. The pack of Spartans stopped at some unseen signal and Loki could see in their eyes that they hated him as well, but still no one said anything to him.Words seemed to weigh as much as gold in Laconia, and no one thought he was worth the expense.A man had joined them in the ring, older than Loki’s brothers but younger than his father if he guessed it.His eyes were tawny, almost golden, in his dark-skinned face, and his right arm ended in a stump below the elbow.Despite this, the Spartans regarded him with reverence.

“A new boy joins the _agoge_ ,” he said, his strange eyes fixed on Loki.“Why?”

“He’s from Athens, Master,” Thor said.Despite the title, he met his eyes directly.“The gods sent him to be my brother.”Loki heard then the unmistakable silence of men too well disciplined to laugh.

“I am Loki…” he began to introduce himself.

“I care not who you are.Keep up, and maybe I will learn your name.” His gaze flicked away from Loki with a last bit of contempt and he returned his attention to the group.“Now, boys, we race.”He did not give them any time to line up, putting his one hand in the air.They all froze until they saw it fall a moment later, then took off at a full run.They jostled him aside, elbowing and kicking him carelessly, as though he were a begging dog.He saw Thor at their head, his lead growing wider as he hit his stride.Soon he was so far out that Loki could even see the flash of his pink heels contrasted against the dusty brown of his shins and ankles.Far off in the distance, a bronze Gorgon mask marked the end of the track, the morning sunlight shining dull off the patina of the metal.Loki decided then that he would not stand for it, and for once began to run in earnest.

Blood sang in his muscles and he flew like the owl he’d seen in his dreams over the track, dodging Spartans who were, for once, too surprised to even try to impede him.Loki ignored them, eyes ever on the golden glint of Thor’s hair, drawing closer.Soon he ran without the taste of their dust in his mouth, but to come second was not his nature.It had to be a quarter mile to the Gorgon, and then the same back to the rude arms instructor.A half-mile sprint was madness, but Loki knew Thor could do it, and so he would do it faster.No one at home could beat him in a footrace, not even boys five years his senior, and though it was starting to burn in his chest and hamstrings, Loki’s lips quirked in a grim smile to have a real challenge.

Thor put his first two fingers to his lips and then transferred the kiss to the Gorgon’s face.Loki was close enough to see her sway, the play of light making her serpentine hair seem to twist and coil as she rocked from his touch.Loki did the same, finding the bronze was still cool from the receding night.Thor’s face registered his surprise for a bare instant when he saw Loki, but he grinned as though he, too, would relish a contested race.Loki ran at his heels, finding more and more speed within himself and not caring how sore he would be later.Everything he had ever wanted before seemed childish and fleeting compared to his pure desire to finish before the prince of Sparta, and he ran like every Fury in Hades was behind him.

Drew closer to Thor a dozen times, but each time the prince sensed it and ran harder himself.At first he increased his lead to an arm length, but he could not hold it in the face of Loki’s determination.It dwindled to half that, then only the length of a hand, then a finger, and soon Loki ran abreast of him.His heart hammered in his chest and his vision had gone narrow, as though he looked through a tunnel, but the last time Thor looked his way, Loki knew he had it.He was better, faster, and wanted it more.

Thor did not let up, and Loki respected that, but he crossed the line a clear and undisputed head before him.The one-armed instructor gave Thor a look that Loki couldn’t read, but neither of them was in much of a state for subtlety.Sweat stung Loki’s eyes and his entire chest heaved like forge bellows.He hunched over, proud in his misery, though his breakfast tried to claw its way back up his throat.They waited, wind returning slowly, silent except for their gasping, until the rest of the runners had crossed the line.The other boys filed in, sweating and panting themselves, and arranged themselves around Thor in dusty, sweaty ranks.

“Loki the Athenian has won the footrace,” the instructor told them.Dozens of hostile eyes turned to him, then to Thor, uncertain what to make of this.“He may go to breakfast first.”He turned his cold, tawny eyes onto Loki and there was no emotion within them, not even contempt, but something told Loki that his little display had started something that was not yet ended.“The rest of you have need of more training, it seems.To the Gorgon and back.Winners do it again with a double load of stones.Losers will feel the lash.Thor, lead them off.”Again Loki was impressed with their utter silence; they started running again without a murmur of complaint, gossip, or boasting.He knew Thor had to be as staggering tired as he was, but he straightened up and ran off without another glance. 

“You have reminded them that he can be beaten,” the instructor said.He did not turn to look at Loki, and his flat tone made it impossible to tell if this was meant as praise, or criticism, or even what passed for friendly conversation.It was true; out on the track the boys he’d met earlier and a few others ran around the flagging prince like loyal dogs, but some chased him in earnest, hungry for the glory they would win if they could best him even once.Loki felt a slight twinge of regret at that, for the race had been between him and Thor.It nettled him that his victory would be a gift to the undeserving herd of them.

“Loki of Athens, why are you still standing here when you have been dismissed?Enjoy your laurels alone in the mess hall.My men have work to do.”

Loki wanted to say something, but he couldn’t think of anything.It was hard to fire a witty rejoinder at the back of the man’s head.He turned and walked off with as much dignity as he could muster, and, he hoped, in the general direction of the mess hall.He would not give the man the satisfaction of asking for directions.

The mundane smell of smoke led him to his destination, though mingled with an awful iron reek instead of the longed-for familiarity of baking bread.The mess hall was a low, ugly building behind the temple of Artemis Orthia.Squat wooden pillars held up the roof and its crude terra cotta figures and a waist-high wall left most of the interior open to the weather, though there were shutters to close it off.Loki chose a splintery seat at one of the long tables where he could see the rest of the room and feel the ghost of a damp river breeze.The sounds of slaves working came to him, muffled and indistinct, and the constant hush of the Eurotas, but they only emphasized how alone he was in a space meant for many.The empty hall had an eerie aspect, but part of Loki was happy to be at last away from hostile and confusing Spartans.Another part felt the silence as a nagging lack; he even gave in to a fleeting moment of paranoia and looked at the ceiling, just to be sure Thor didn’t crouch there among the beams, ready to drop on him again.But of course Thor was still running laps of the track, probably cursing his name to every lost soul in Hades.Loki could not figure out why his absence seemed so portentous.He dug slivers of wood out of the table with his nails and as he waited, the Achilles of his vision kept flitting before his mind’s eye.

Thor showed up at last, before any of the others.Sweat poured down his face and his hair was dark and stiff with it, and dust clung to his wet skin.Loki’s loose, tired body went tense, ready to throw words, or fists.

“Good run,” Thor said.He dropped onto the bench next to Loki and clapped a heavy hand on his back.

“You too,” Loki said, though he was still suspicious.

“How did you know which table was ours?” Thor asked, and Loki couldn’t tell if the “ours” included him, or just Thor’s friends.

“It’s the nicest,” Loki said as though it had been obvious.“Am I in your seat?” he asked.He didn’t want to move.He liked having Thor between him and the other Spartans, and the river at his back.But he would, if Thor asked, to make up for embarrassing him earlier.

“No,”Thor said.The mass of Thor’s classmates arrived and began to fill the empty hall.He shot Loki that rare flash of a smile before anyone got to their end.“You’re in Hogun’s seat.”

Loki thought Hogun could probably break him into pieces, if he could catch him, but the older boy didn’t argue.His dark eyes only acknowledged his displacement before he sat across from Loki, and the others filled in the table around him.Now Loki heard some normal conversations among the Spartan boys, though they were still subdued compared to what he expected as they packed into the tables, and he could feel the tension and upheaval his arrival had caused.He wondered who he had displaced from the favored table, but he couldn’t tell if any of them hated him more than any other.They looked at him, and at Thor, and had low, dark, muttering conversations just out of earshot.Thor ignored them, regal as Agamemnon himself.

Slaves brought them plain clay bowls, stained dark and chipped from a long life of hard use.Not long after that they brought each table a mixing bowl of strange soup, reddish black, watery, and foul smelling.Loki saw immediately that there was not enough of the noisome liquid to go around.He silently asked that Athena and Artemis, or any other listening god, bestow a special blessing on Queen Frigga for feeding him ahead of time, because he didn’t like his chances of getting any food.

There was no signal, but as soon as the last bowl hit the last table, the hall exploded into a flurry of near-silent violence as the Spartans kicked and elbowed each other.Loki sat as far back as he could to let Thor have a better chance and watched the spectacle.He saw that each table had a system somewhere between cooperation and an all out brawl, with Thor’s being the most civilized, but somehow all of the soup ended up in someone’s bowl, not a drop wasted.The prince surprised him again, taking Loki’s bowl and filling it even before his own.He set it down in front of his guest and several quick hands twitched to grab it, but Thor kept them at bay with only a hard glare and the unspoken threat of his hand closing into a fist.

It was even more revolting up close.The broth reeked of iron and had an inconsistent texture, like it was full of clots.Loki looked hopefully for bread, because they surely couldn’t ruin bread, but there wasn’t any.He stirred his breakfast and found there were gluey lumps of something pale, like dough that had been boiled instead of baked.The Spartans around him tore into their food, but Loki wouldn’t have let a dog eat it.He knew he’d have to try at least a little, but then he planned to give it away as soon as possible.

“Eat,” Thor told him.Hungry eyes were watching his bowl as he hesitated.“Lunch is even worse.”Again that flash of teeth, and it seemed the prince was making a joke.Loki did not find it funny.He brought the bowl to his mouth, slowly, and hoped he wouldn’t vomit.

A shadow fell across him moments before a rough hand tore the dish away from him.Only a few drops had hit his tongue, yet the vile taste of salt and copper and crude flour coated his mouth and filled his nose.A boy stood over him, holding the dish out of his reach.He had the dark skin and tawny eyes of the arms instructor, and the same soft dark curls in his hair, but the exotic beauty of his face only accentuated the cruelty that lit him from within.He looked blunt-muzzled and mean as a dockside guard dog.

“Give it back,” Loki warned.He didn’t want it, and was in fact afraid that even if he poured it out on the ground it would poison the vegetation for miles.But he understood, from observation and instinct, that it would be a terrible mistake to let this boy take it away.

“Are you going to make me?” he taunted.Loki’s face burned, but he wasn’t sure what to do.At home, he could have done it; he could have given him a tongue lashing that would have sent him off in shame, or even held his own in a scuffle, but these Spartans were too dense for words to affect and Loki didn’t think a fight around here would stop with a bloody nose.

“I thought not,” the boy said.Thor shifted next to him and sighed.“Of course the Attic coward can run away faster than anyone.”A murmur went through the surrounding Spartans at the word ‘coward’.

“We didn’t run away two years ago when your whole army came to pay a call,” Loki shot back.“Your kings ran back home like whipped dogs, too afraid to even cross spears with us.”Loki knew he should shut his mouth.He had just insulted the father, brother, or uncle of every boy in the room. He had a fleeting image of his mother’s ghost trying to hold him like Athena held Achilles at the council of Agamemnon, grasping at his long hair without the goddess’s success.“I guess they just wanted to get dressed up in their fancy helmets and wave their dicks around.Such a shame when a whore puts on her best jewelry and struts her corner but can’t even find a man who will give her a go.”Loki’s throat burned and his stomach twisted, but his voice carried and the false friendly smile never slipped from his face.“Nice of them to leave us time for the Thebans and the Cilicians. _They_ wanted to dance.Didn’t go well for them, either.”There was no refuting that.With his staccato Attic accent, he wasn’t even sure he’d caught everything Loki had said, but he’d caught enough.Loki dropped his veneer of civility and let his utter contempt show in his green eyes.“Now give me back my bowl before all your fine comrades see that you aren’t even fit to be my Ganymede.”

There was a heartbeat of still silence, and then several things happened in rapid sequence.The boy, who still hadn’t even introduced himself, smashed the bowl on the floor.Loki had expected his fists to be quicker than his wits, but not the snake-strike precision with which he grabbed Loki by the neck and lifted him from his bench.He threw Loki down and seized his hair, ready to slam his face down on the shards of broken crockery.Then, while some in the crowd were still trying to remember who Ganymede was, Thor yanked the boy off him and spun him around with a solid punch to the jaw.Hogun hauled Loki back onto the bench and shielded him between himself and Volstagg, but Loki could still see the fight.He’d seen boys brawl before, even in earnest, but he had never seen something settled with such brutally decisive, economical violence.His attacker was older, heavier, and stronger, but Thor was faster on his feet.He dodged the boy’s attempts to grapple in a blonde blur, then swept low to knock his knees out and caught him as he fell.He pinned the boy with an elbow on his neck and one knee in his lower back and held until he stopped thrashing.

“Let it go,” Thor advised.The boy’s tawny eyes were dazed but still promised murder.Blood from his nose mixed with the dark broth on the floor.The whole thing had gone by so quickly that it had not even soaked into the straw.He tried again to find a weakness in Thor’s stance, but there was none to find, and he winced as Thor let more of his weight rest on his trapped neck.

“He insulted us!” the boy wheezed.

“You insulted him first.He is a guest here, brought by the gods.”

“He beat you!Are you going to accept that?”Thor let the pressure off just slightly, the muscles in his arms standing out a little less, and considered this.

“He did it fairly,” Thor admitted.“I’ll get faster.Now let it go.Show him we are not savages with no knowledge of _xenia.”_

“Apologize,” Fandral whispered to Loki.

“I would sooner eat that swill off the floor with my tongue,” Loki hissed.“He started it.”

“You called Sparta a land of cowards.Thor can’t fight them all,” he nearly pleaded, and Loki at last looked around at the gathered Spartans and saw he was right.Thor wouldn’t be able to protect him from the entire mob.

“Forgive me,” he said, in his best imitation of his father’s famous voice.Thor, his challenger, and the rest of the Spartans looked back on him, and though Loki didn’t want their attention, he knew he needed to have it.“In Athens we trade insults the way you trade blows, to see who is the best,” he said, stretching the truth more than a little but not lying outright.“I thought you meant to challenge me when you called me a coward,” Loki said.He slowed his speech so the Spartans would catch all of his words.“We train our words to be as swift as our feet, and we run so fast so that we can catch a fleeing foe, or close the distance between our phalanx and the front ranks of doomed Thebans.Please, I am a guest here, and I do not mean to bring discord and dishonor to myself or my hosts.”Thor raised an eyebrow at him, but the others seemed uncertain and watched how it would play out.

“There, you hear that?He offers you an apology even though you insulted him as a guest of the royal household, Tyndareus.Accept that and let it go.”Tyndareus had the eyes of a lion in a snare, and Loki knew he did not forgive, but Thor would not allow him to raise his head out of the dirt.

“I accept his apology,” he hissed, but Thor still did not shift.

“And?”It was clear, to Loki at least, that Thor had made an enemy for life with that word.

“And I offer apology for my own insult,” he said, though nothing about his voice or body indicated that he was sincere.

“Do you accept that, Prince Loki?” Thor asked.He looked at Loki, and he could read the offer in Thor’s blue eyes.If Loki did not feel his honor was satisfied, Thor would keep fighting, and for a moment Loki wanted to let him.When he imagined watching Thor in his element, working through the brawling crowd with just his fists and his lean golden body for weapons, heat rose to his cheeks that had nothing to do with shame and spread through his whole body.It rested between his legs and he felt his cock begin to stir against the scratchy folds of wool.Fandral nailed him in the ribs with an elbow when the pause stretched too long.

“I accept,” he said.Thor let Tyndareus up then, and everyone went back to eating, the tension eased but not vanished.Loki’s instincts told him this would not be the last time it would erupt into violence.Thor returned to his seat and everyone shuffled until he was in the same place on the splintery bench.Tyndareus also returned to his table to lick his wounds.

“I apologize as well,” Thor said, with that sombre, almost pompous way of his that Loki thought he must have learned from his father.“He should not have said that to you, and I should have intervened sooner.”

“Why didn’t you?” Loki asked.He hadn’t stopped his friends that morning.

“I wanted to see how you would fight,” Thor admitted.“How you would handle it.I didn’t know your only strategy was suicide.”Thor sighed and handed Loki the remnants of his own bowl of Spartan gruel.“Here.Eat.”

“No, I couldn’t,” Loki said and tried to push it back to Thor.

“You need to.Instructor Tyr will be mad as a kicked beehive when he finds out about the fight, and he will train us within an inch of our lives.If you pass out from hunger, it won’t go any better for you.”Thor put the dish decisively in front of Loki.Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg looked to each other and began, with some sadness, to collect what was left of their own breakfast in a single vessel, but Thor waved them off.He indicated that they should finish with a shake of his head, and they went back to eating.Loki felt cornered, and would almost have rather have Tyndareus come back for another round, or some other Spartan antagonist, but none appeared.Slaves were gathering up the dishes at other tables and Thor’s face grew less patient.

He tipped it back and tried to swallow as much as possible without tasting it.After two gulps, the full flavor hit him, like the run-off pit behind the Acropolis after a major holy day, overflowing with the clotted blood and shit of a hundred sacrificial sheep or goats, as though that smell had been boiled down and forced into his mouth.His eyes watered and his throat nearly closed off, but he felt that burning, piercing pain in his breast again at the thought of shaming Thor.To fail meant to literally spit in his host’s face, or even puke in his lap, so Loki found the strength to keep swallowing.After the last glutinous lump of coppery dough had worked down to his stomach, Loki opened his eyes.Though he still had to fight his gag reflex, his reward was another of Thor’s half smiles, the warm light of something like his approval.

“Good job,” Thor said, with a hearty slap on the back that nearly undid all of Loki’s hard work.“Didn’t think you could do it.”

“You eat that every day?” Loki managed to ask.His stomach was still mutinous, but it was getting easier to breathe.He’d have fought all the Spartans present for a piece of bread or a cup of wine, or even the salted fish they ate all winter back home, anything to chase the taste out of his mouth.

“If we’re lucky,” Thor said.“Sometimes it’s worse, or we don’t get anything at all.But you took it well,” he said.“What do you think, boys?There’s hope we’ll make a proper Spartan of him yet?”They all had a low chuckle at that, and Loki couldn’t tell if the joke was with him or on him, a feeling he’d once known well but hadn’t experienced in years.

 

He and Thor were among the last to get back after breakfast, and he could tell Tyr had some idea what had happened, but he didn’t say anything directly.It seemed the Spartans were expected to police themselves, and Loki doubted it was a good idea to get him involved.

“Time for the wrestling.We will do this differently today.No picking partners.I will pick, and we will see how you fare with your peers watching.”He looked out over the crowd, and though they were too disciplined to talk among themselves, Loki could feel their unease.“Thor.Tyndareus.You are our leaders so far.Let us see your skill.”His lip quirked up, a gesture almost too small to see, and it made an old, faded scar stand out beside his left eye.“The winner can have the first bout with our Athenian guest.”Thor went tense next to him, and Loki’s stomach twisted so hard he tasted copper and bile on the base of his tongue.

Tyr scratched a broad square in the sandy dirt in front of them, and the two boys stepped into it.Clotted blood still glistened in the split on Tyndareus’ lip and the first bloom of a bruise darkened his jaw where Thor had hit him, but he still looked pleased.Loki wanted Thor to look back and nod, or smile, or do anything to reassure him, but he didn’t.Loki looked to Thor’s friends, but they were grim and silent and wouldn’t meet his eye.

“Go,” Tyr said, and Thor and Tyndareus began to circle each other.Loki watched them, trying to predict what they would do.Thor moved first, trying to make the most of his speed, but he couldn’t upset his opponent’s balance and he ducked back as quickly as he’d gone in to avoid being caught in a grapple.They circled again, but with each pass Thor got closer to the line in the dust.Loki could see him thinking, weighing options, imagining what would happen to Loki if he lost, and he begged him silently to stop.Tyndareus caught him at last and brought him down, so fast that he couldn’t even see the pin until Thor was on his back in the dirt.He twisted Thor’s arm like he was trying to pull the wing off a chicken, but Thor did not cry out, and he did not stop fighting.No words passed between them, and weren’t necessary for them to communicate, but a low, snickering mutter went around the ring and Loki couldn’t tell who they favored.The muscles in Thor’s neck and shoulders stood out as he strained against the hold, but he did not thrash ineffectually, and Tyr refused to call the match.He watched them with his implacable golden eyes, but he didn’t speak either.

Tyndareus sank his teeth into the bulging muscle of Thor’s straining shoulder and this at last drove a faint sound of pain from his lips.Tyndareus’ black curls bounced as he tore at Thor, but Thor had found his opening.While his opponent bit his right shoulder, Thor got his left arm free and used it to yank him away by the hair.His body wriggled like an eel and then Thor was free, using his weight and momentum to flip his larger opponent. Once again, he had Tyndareus pinned, on his back this time, with his weight straddling his hips and his elbow wedged in his windpipe. Tyndareus struggled and kneed Thor in the back, trying to wrap his waist with his legs to pull him off, but Thor leaned forward over his throat and pressed relentlessly until Tyndareus, gasping and gagging, signaled his yield.

“Thor is the victor,” Tyr said. Tyndarues skulked back to the sideline, his face bulging and red from the match and a black cloud of hatred trailing him. No one said anything. In Athens, there might have been cheering, even bets, in the gymnasium, but the Spartan discipline didn’t allow that.

“Now, Thor will have the honor of showing our foreign guest the famous skill of Spartan wrestlers,” Tyr said, still without any inflection. He beckoned Loki forward with a curt gesture, and Loki swallowed hard. Thor looked at them both, and Tyr gave him a slight, meaningful nod.

“He’s going to kill you,” Tyndareus whispered through his bloody teeth as Thor waited in the ring. Thor made circles with his right arm, trying to stretch out the damage his opponent had done.He met Loki’s eyes, but he couldn’t read anything there.He wanted to run, but instead he stepped into the circle.

“All right, then, Loki of Athens,” Tyr said.“Let’s see if you fight as well as you run.”Loki took the stance his instructors at home had taught him, and thought he might be able to avoid Thor for a few minutes, but there was no way he could match him.Tyndareus would already have him, he didn’t doubt it, but thinking back over the morning he was not at all sure Thor could show him much mercy.The Spartan prince made a slow, lazy circle around him.Come on, his face said.Try it.Show you are willing.But Loki found he couldn’t think of any openings.He’d only started to train in wrestling a year earlier, and he’d seen these Spartans perform moves that grown men didn’t try in Athens.

“Quit the foreplay and fuck him already,” one of the boys said.His voice sounded familiar, slurred like his tongue had swollen.

“He’s trying to decide whether he wants him on his back like a whore or on all fours like an Argive slave boy,” another said.The jeering got louder, and Tyr did nothing to discourage it.Although his face was implacable as ever, Loki could feel his patience slipping.

When Thor moved, he let Loki see him coming, and he tried to duck out of his hands, but he didn’t know any effective counter to the grapple.Thor’s hands felt firm but almost gentle as he picked up Loki, and he seemed to travel over Thor’s back in floating slow motion.The dirt of the ring rushed up to meet his face and he shut his eyes and waited for the pain.It didn’t come, as Thor checked his fall and laid him out on the dirt with precise control.Loki squeezed his eyes shut and curled into a ball, waiting to be kicked or slammed or even bitten, but nothing came.When Thor touched him again, it was to help him up.The crowd had gone deadly silent.

“Again,” Tyr barked, and his eyes warned Thor that he had better teach a lesson, but their second bout was no different.Thor had enough skill to lay him out without a scratch, and he did so.

“That’s enough,” Tyr said.“Is this how you normally fight, Thor?”The crowd of Spartans looked little kinder than the arms instructor and Loki stared at the ground instead.

“It wouldn’t be right,” Thor said.“He doesn’t know how.”Thor’s whole body vibrated with tension, ready to take a blow, but he looked Tyr in the eye.

“I was not aware that we were learning to care for infants.But perhaps we will find someone more on his level.Who is next in the rankings?”Tyr did not look back at the boys, instead staring down the defiant prince.

“I am,” Volstagg said.He was mountainous, but Loki doubted his speed was much less than Thor’s, and his own odds were no better.

“Volstagg, then.Test your mettle against our newest recruit, since Thor is too softhearted to fight him like a Spartan.”

In moments, he found himself held over Volstagg’s broad shoulders, but the boy also hesitated to crush his face into the floor.He looked over to Tyr and Thor, and Loki opened his eyes to watch them through the fall of his hair.Tyr gave him a small nod, but Thor shook his head no, a gesture so slight it showed only as a change in the way light glinted off the loose golden fall of his hair.He felt Volstagg sigh and then he also set Loki on the ground unharmed.He looked miserable, but he went to stand with Thor as Loki picked himself up from the ring.He wondered if he would have to wrestle all the Spartans present, and how far down the list he would get before Tyr found one who would hurt him sufficiently.Looking at the crowd, he doubted it would be very many.

“Does anyone else agree with Thor?” Tyr asked.His tone was level but dangerous, rumbling like an earthquake in the distance.Thor looked to Hogun and Fandral, and they pulled away from the group and came to stand with him as well.

“You disappoint me, boys,” Tyr said, and all of them looked down except for Thor.“I cannot work with you if you won’t train like Spartans.Get out, and don’t come back until you can behave like men again.Perhaps you can find a place for the Athenian among your honored mothers.”Tyr turned away from them, shutting them out totally.“All right Spartans, form up in pairs and spar.Impress me.”

Thor looked like he wanted to say something, but no words came.He turned and left the field with his hands balled into fists, and his three friends hesitated only a moment before they followed him.Loki didn’t want to feel Thor’s wrath, but he knew better than to stick around the training ground, so he went with them.

Thor went to a different training area, one that seemed to belong to an older group.He found a scuffed hide bag full of sand and began punching it, setting up a lethal pattern of strikes.His three warriors sat down in awkward silence and Loki sat apart from them, none of them speaking.They had begun to sweat in the sun when Thor returned, dripping himself.Blood seeped from his skinned knuckles and his cheeks had flushed red, but he seemed himself again.

“Come on,” he said.As they rose, Loki experimentally moved in closer to Thor, and the prince did not strike him.

“They’re just jealous of you,” he said.“You’re so much better than they are, you have no need to train with your enemies.”He hoped a little flattery would help, but Thor only looked at him with a hint of sadness in his eyes.

“They were never my enemies until today,” he said.They broke into a ground-eating, loping jog, and Thor led them out into the Laconian countryside for the worst afternoon of Loki’s life.

 

They spent the hottest part of the afternoon at Thor’s home, where slaves brought them pitchers of water mixed with a tiny measure of harsh wine.It reminded Loki more of the pitch they slathered on the ships down in the harbor than anything fit to drink, but he was by then so thirsty he would have drunk out of a goat trough.Thor had been distracted on their long run through the hot, hilly farmland, and he had a hushed, almost fearful conversation with his mother while his companions rested.Loki saw her pat his cheek and give him a smile, which he returned, and though he longed to watch he pulled his eyes away from the private moment.

Thor called upon his friends to spar with him, and they ignored Loki for the rest of the afternoon.He thought about slipping off to the room he shared with the prince to amuse himself with the few school supplies he had brought, but his pride wouldn’t let him.He sat cross legged in the narrow stripe of shade offered by the courtyard wall and watched Thor win over and over.Lunch never appeared, and no one commented upon its lack, though the water pitchers stayed full.

When the sun began to sink, Thor looked to Loki at last and beckoned him over with a curt gesture.Loki found his legs had stiffened so tight he could hardly stand, and he tried to get in some discrete stretching when the others weren’t watching.Thor clasped hands with each of his warriors before they departed into the dusk and Loki returned to his side, hiding his hobble as best he could.As they had the day before, Thor took a cold, crude bath, but this time Loki was included in it.He wanted to poke and probe Thor’s wall of silence, but there seemed no way to do it.It nettled him that Thor didn’t even seem to give him the silent treatment as a punishment.He just saw no point in talking to Loki.

“Do you have friends at home?” he asked at last.He squeezed water out of his dripping hair and spoke as though the answer held no true interest. 

“Of course.I have loads of friends,” Loki lied.He had classmates and acquaintances and a few enemies he had hated for so long it was almost a kind of fondness, but he had only one friend.And he was unorthodox to say the least.

“Like mine?” Thor’s eyes showed a spark of interest, as though he wanted to ask about Athens but did not have the words.

“Better,” Loki told him.Thor’s friends hated and envied him and he refused to care.

“They defied Master Tyr for you,” Thor pointed out.

“They did that for _you_ ,” Loki said.Honestly, how dense could he be?Was he just so used to love and loyalty that it was invisible to him?

“Well, they won’t be able to join us every day,” Thor said.“They have to go back to the barracks.”What a shame, Loki thought.How I shall miss them.Still, the thought of a day alone with Thor started a tight, fluttery feeling in his stomach that he couldn’t place and didn’t want to analyze.

“Do they have to bring my head back on a plate first?” Loki saw that Thor heard the bitter joke.

“Probably not.I might, though,” he smiled a little.“Come on, time for dinner.I’ll pay for it in autumn, but I haven’t been home in ages.”

Thor turned the corner into the dining room and Balder launched himself into his brother’s knees.

“What is this cowardice?”Thor laughed.Balder failed to knock him over.“I’ll have to teach you to fight like a Spartan!”He caught his little brother at the base of the neck and forced him down.Loki found his hand reaching to intervene without his conscious intent, but the boy was shrieking with laughter, not fear, as Thor worked him over with rough tickling.

“Do you yield, squirrel?” Thor asked, and Balder shook his head.Thor redoubled his efforts until Balder gasped out the word.“I thought so,” Thor said.“You’ll have to get a bit bigger before you can challenge me.”Again, Loki saw that rare flash of grin, and the relaxation around Thor’s eyes.Thor crouched down and wiped the tears off Balder’s cheeks with the corner of his wrap and the little boy hugged him.He whispered something in Thor’s ear, but he shook his head.

“You will have to ask him yourself,” Thor said.“Go on.”He pushed Balder closer to Loki, and the little boy wavered between shy and bold for a moment until he looked Loki in the eye.

“Will you finish the story, Loki?About Athens and the bull man?”Loki looked to Thor, but he only shrugged over Balder’s shoulder.He could respond as he chose, but when his eyes met Thor’s he saw his desire to hear the tale himself before he buried it behind that flat Laconian expression of his.

“I will,” Loki promised.No one had ever asked to hear his stories before.“If your mother says it’s all right.”

“Thank you,” Balder said.“I greatly look forward to it.”Loki nearly laughed at how serious he had become, nearly as pompous as Thor himself had been the night before, but instead they nodded to each other to seal the agreement.Balder broke first, grinning his excitement at Loki and then at Thor.He was about to speak when a new voice entered their conversation.

“Boys,” it said, low and rumbling.Balder’s face froze and his smile fled.He ducked behind Thor as the prince got quickly to his feet.In only a few quick movements, Thor came to rest in a stiff, military pose, all trace of laughter vanished from his face in a guilty instant.Laufey had described King Odin to his son, but his words did nothing to prepare for the thundercloud dread of his charisma.He stood nearly as tall as Loki’s own father, but broad like a bull, and silver shot through the sandy hair of his short, severe beard.One blue eye, almost the color of Thor’s but much, much colder, took them all in with the flat, vague menace of a winter sky.A patch of dark leather covered the other socket, inscribed with a stylized eye that was almost worse than his true one.Loki wanted to hide behind Thor as well, but he forced his pose to remain casual, as though he did not suddenly understand why Thor had been so fearful and distracted that afternoon.

“Father,” they said in near unison, and dipped their eyes to the floor.Loki mimicked them, not sure what else to do.

“Thor.Why are you not at the barracks?”

“I’ve come home to entertain my Athenian guest,” Thor said.“This is prince Loki, son of Laufey.Loki, this is my honored father, King Odin, Son of Bor.”

“He’s no prince, boy.Don’t embarrass yourself.Still, his father is a powerful man, in his way.Welcome to Sparta, young Laufeyson.”

“Thank you, your…” Loki’s tongue stumbled as he realized he did not know the proper title for the king of Sparta.Athens had had tyrants, and the Persians and other barbarians had their monarchs, but he did not want to give offense.

“It’s just ‘sire’ or ‘my king’ in public.But at home, you may call me Father.I will be your parent while you are with us, and you will be as a brother to my son.”Odin’s mouth moved into something like a smile for Loki, though he looked no friendlier for it.

“I gave you to understand that your new brother is to be a Spartan, Thor.Why is he not at the barracks with you?” Odin’s attention shifted fully back to his eldest son, and Loki felt as though a weight had lifted from his chest and he could breathe again.

“He cannot train with us, Father,” Thor said.His throat worked as he swallowed hard and the skin of his bare torso was flushing pink, but his voice was clear.

“You doubt the gods?”

“No, Father, but he cannot be dropped into our ways.He…they would have hurt him.”

“So you defended him?”

“Yes.” Thor looked up, daring his father to say he’d been wrong.

“That is well, then.I had heard that he called us cowards, and you backed him.I heard that you left in disgrace.”

“That’s not what happened,” Loki said, and both Odin and Thor turned to look at him.He wished he’d stayed quiet, but he kept going.“They called me a coward first,” Loki admitted, “And I was angry, so I said that the last time our cities met on the battlefield, the Spartans left without a fight, and then that savage tried to kill me.Thor had to stop him.”Thor looked resigned, as though he wished Loki had kept quiet as well.Odin surprised them both when a short bark of laughter left his throat.

“Know about that, do you?I’d love to have seen their faces.”Odin ignored Thor and turned his eye to Loki.“Know why we left?”Loki nearly spoke, but he knew only rumor and bragging.He shook his head.“Cleomenes wanted to go, all right, but I didn’t like our chances.Too many Athenians, too strong a position.Not enough faith in our summer allies.We quarreled about it and the whole thing fell apart.Won’t happen again, though.Cleomenes is out and Leonidas has taken his place.Made a law against both kings taking the field together, too, so we will always fight from a united opinion.Next time we’ll give you fight enough to make up for it!”Odin grabbed Loki by the upper arm and shook him, but he showed his teeth at the same time in what was likely meant as a friendly gesture.

“We’ll be ready,” Loki told him, and received another snort of amusement and a tooth-rattling shake from the king.

“Maybe you can make a Spartan of him after all,” Odin told Thor.He took his son by the shoulders and turned his face up to meet his.“You are the strongest,” he said.“The best.Even if they forget it, you will prove it when you return.We have more care for the good opinion of the gods than we do your foolish peers.Look after him.”Loki could hear the unspoken “or else” at the end of Odin’s speech.Though the king’s words had been friendly, Loki felt like Thor had been instructed to make the best of a bad situation in which every problem had him as a source.Odin left without a further word for him, and with nothing for Balder except an impersonal nod.

Even after he had gone, the Spartans seemed to feel his presence on them and their behavior was as cold and distant as their father’s.Once again, Frigga sat with them at dinner, and Loki decided not to be insulted that they could not eat with Odin and the other grown men.At home he ate alone, or with his tutor, and waited for the night that his father would include him at a symposium.By the time he offered to finish the story of Theseus as the desserts came around, he had Balder smiling, but he could not get back the relaxed, friendly Thor he’d seen earlier.Slaves lit lamps around the room when Theseus abandoned poor Ariadne because his audience did not want him to stop until it was over.The sweet, smoky scent of burning olive oil filled the room and leant the story an air of mystery and menace that Loki used, making little Balder jump at shadows, but he kept getting distracted by the play of the flickering light over Thor’s loose hair.

When he wrapped up the tale, his smallest audience member was asleep in his mother’s lap, and she took him off to bed.He went with Thor up to the hot, plain room and stripped off his odd Spartan clothes.He lay in the bed, listening to the faint sounds of insects and goat bells while he watched the moon.He had made it through one day in Sparta.By his count he would see the moon in this same stage two or three more times before his brother would come to get him.Athens might have been Olympus at that moment, or Hesperia, or even Elysium itself where his mother waited, it felt so far off, but he knew the same moon watched over his home.

“I liked your story,” Thor said from the floor.His voice had gone dreamy with avoided sleep.

“I’m glad.”

“Do you know any others?”

“I know lots of stories,” Loki told him.“But you’ve probably heard most of them.”

“We don’t tell a lot of stories,” Thor admitted.“And even if I’d heard it before, I’d like to hear you tell it.”The moonlight lit the faint curve of a smile on Thor’s lips and gleamed silver off his hair.

“Maybe there is hope for me yet, then,” Loki said, and tried to keep the bitterness from his voice.Thor answered him with a soft snore, and despite his anxiety Loki soon joined him in sleep.

 

No matter his opinion on Spartans and their intelligence, Loki had to admit defeat when it came to tying on the scratchy piece of cloth that they wore.It was dirty from the day before and filled him with dread, and Thor had never shown him how it went on as he had promised.He cursed himself for not studying it better when he undid it the night before, and each time he thought he had it, it fell off or started to slide as soon as he moved.Another cool, dewy dawn spread her rosy light over Laconia already, and he’d woken up alone in Thor’s room.

“Don’t bother,” Thor told him from the doorway.Once again, Loki had not heard him come up the stairs, and his face burned wondering how long the prince had been watching him fumble with the cloth.

“Where were you?” Loki snapped.“And what should I wear, then?”

“Went running,” Thor shrugged.“It doesn’t matter what you wear.Whatever is normal for you.”

“Won’t I stick out?” Loki asked.Thor shrugged again, and his face said they both knew that was a stupid question.Loki was still glad to have permission to put back on his shift and chiton, and the familiar weight of his silver owl at his shoulder.

“No one will see you,” Thor said.

“Oh.You gave up on me already?” Loki wanted it to sound like a joke, but it stung, a little.

“You and I can’t go back to the barracks, not until you can hold your own in the wrestling,” Thor said.“And if you see anyone from yesterday when I’m not with you, run.”

“What a charming and friendly place this is,” Loki said, and he hoped sarcasm wasn’t lost on Thor.

 

So began a week of almost pure hell for Loki of Athens.Thor might not be as fast as Loki, but he could run all day, and he would.Loki’s pride and stuborness could drive him for a while, and then the fear of getting separated from Thor, and who would find him if he got lost, but by the time the sun was high above them, he would have to stop.Then he would bear Thor’s silent disappointment on top of the burning pain in his muscles and lungs.

“Stay here,” Thor would say, and hand him the water skin.Then the prince would disappear for a while and Loki would drink, stretch his legs and try to breathe.He unlaced his sandals (though the prince went without shoes of any kind, Loki couldn’t face the rocky paths barefoot) and sat in whatever shade he could find and waited, cursing himself for failing and Thor for existing and asking the gods why they had put him here.When Thor returned, he brought them something to eat, though he never said where he got it.Loki would accept his share of figs or crude bread or, once, a round of soft cheese, and they would eat without talking.He noticed that Thor always split the food unevenly, and gave Loki more.

Thor tried to teach him to wrestle for a few days, but Loki found it impossible to improve.Even the basics he’d learned at home seemed to vanish as soon as Thor stripped down and invited Loki to grab him, even taking Loki’s hands and placing them where he wanted when he seemed unable to do it himself.Even the idea of touching Thor’s bronzed, hot skin shorted out his ability to process simple words, and when he could feel the muscle shifting below his palms he could never remember what he was supposed to do.After two days, Thor gave up.Though his wrestling lessons had been hours of confusion and pure shame, Loki found he missed them.Walking back to Thor’s house after lunch seemed like a punishment instead of a reward.He spent the long afternoons watching Thor try to do complex, incomprehensible drills that were meant for a group by himself and feeling his rejection.

 

Their routine changed on the day that Loki came down in the morning and heard Thor arguing with his father the king.He stopped when he heard voices on the other side of the wall, halfway down the stairs, and knew he should go back up, or make himself known.If he went back upstairs, they would hear it; Loki chose instead to creep down a few more steps, until he could make out what they were saying.The gods rewarded his decision in their usual way.

…”Let him stay here, then, father.”

“He stays with you,” Odin rumbled.“As I ordered before.”

“He cannot keep up,” Thor said.“He’s not a Spartan.He can’t do any of our training.Let him stay here, with Mother and Balder.He would be safer and happier with them, and I wouldn’t be held back.”

“Your guest, the brother the Oracle promised, holds you back?” Even Loki heard danger in the king’s voice, and could picture his terrible mismatched eyes.

“Yes!We can’t even…” but Thor never finished.Loki heard the solid, wet thunk of a blow, and though Thor did not cry out, he still caught the sharp sound of his breath.Loki wished, now, that he had not come closer.He did not want to hear this.

“Do you question my command, boy?” Odin, like Laufey, did not yell, did not even raise his voice.He didn’t need to.

“N…No, Sire,” Thor managed.

“Do you think I want the wrath of Pythian Apollo to come down on Sparta?”

“No, Sire.”

“That’s right, fool boy.You know what can happen if we offer him insult, and it would be disaster for more than just you, or even our family.Have you forgotten the last time?The plague that took your sister, that would have taken your mother had the sacrifices not been adequate?

“No…Sire.”

“No?No what?”

“I haven’t forgotten.I haven’t forgotten her.”

“Good.Your personal glory is nothing compared to that, especially now when I need Sparta strong and firm in the gods’ favors.You take Laufey’s pretty son and you make a brother of him the best you can, and you don’t question the Oracle any more, or I’ll see you get worse than this.”

“Yes, Sire.I will.”

Loki froze, but forced himself to relax and continue down the last few stairs as though he had not heard anything.He ignored the tightness in his chest and the catch at the back of his throat, and he especially ignored the burn of unshed tears in his eyes.He had known, or should have known, how Thor felt about him; as often as he had thought the gods had sent him here as a cruel punishment, Thor must have thought the same.

He tried to school his face into a neutral mask, but he need not have bothered.Thor walked out the door and their eyes met for only a moment before the Spartan prince ducked his gaze in shame, but he said nothing to Loki and barely waited for him to follow.At the front door, Frigga waited for them with food as she had every morning since Tyr had barred them from the barracks.Thor had no time for her either, as though in his head he was already running, far from his father and Loki and his memories.She touched his arm and he accepted the bread she put in his hand, but Loki saw the hard, helpless look in her eyes when she noticed his left arm curled to his side and the angry purple-red mark of a bruise spreading over his ribs.She could not coax a smile from him and he broke away from her and jogged to the gate as though he could not bear to be still.

“Be careful,” she told Loki as she passed him his own breakfast.She studied his face and must have seen something there, for she continued.“The gods sent you here because you need each other,” she said.“Thor will come around.”

“I don’t care if he likes me or not,” Loki snapped.He followed Thor, prepared for an even worse day than usual, but he soon regretted his words.The silver owl felt especially heavy today and Loki boiled with jealousy at the injustice of it, that Thor’s mother lived and his own had died before he’d known her.He ate the bread, chewed and swallowed without tasting it, but it represented her kindness and a relationship he’d never had.Thor handed him his own bread, untouched, and while Loki could not tell exactly what he was feeling, he knew it had to be bad.He ate that too, and hoped Thor would regret giving it away later.Thor broke into his easy, ground-eating run and Loki groaned inside as he tried to push his stiff and aching legs to match it.They took a new route, up a steep wooded track that led toward the hills outside the city.

Thor startled at the sound of an owl, and then grinned into the trees lining their path.

“Come out!” he called.Loki’s heart sank when he saw Thor’s warriors spring out of their hiding places.He stopped and stretched and tried to ignore their conversation.

“What are you doing here?” Thor asked, and Loki hated the warmth in his voice and all three of their smiling faces.He wished, for a moment, that he was back at the palace with the queen and Balder, even if it would be an insult.

“We’re on a foraging expedition,” Volstagg said.“And we thought, ‘Thor must miss us so’.”

“Ha!More like you three miss me,” Thor said.“You would go hungry without my help.”

“Maybe some of both,” Fandral said.“What do you say, Thor?Want to come?”

“Of course!” Thor said.“I will lead us to victory.”

“And lunch, I trust,” Volstagg said.

“Is he coming?” Hogun asked, jerking his head to Loki.

“Loki?Do you wish to come?” Thor asked.Four sets of eyes turned to study him, awaiting his response.He didn’t want to go, but he didn’t want to see how easily Thor would leave him behind, either. 

“I suppose,” Loki said.He held his nose and chin high and tried to hide the stiffness of his walk as he followed them.

Thor and his warriors spoke little but Loki could tell they communicated much through glances and small gestures.They moved as a unit, trading positions at the front and rear, scouting ahead and returning in near silence.Loki stayed on the path, excluded from their lifelong comfort with each other, and tried to stay out of their way.Thor led them to a small farmstead, little more than a one or two room mud and wood house with a shed and a reeking goat pen.A thin column of dark smoke rose from the roof and somewhere within a baby cried, reedy and insistent.A bony woman stooped through the yard, bent under the weight of two amphoras balanced on her shoulders.The Spartans crouched in the cover of the trees as though they surveyed a whole army encampment instead of a poor, stony farm.

“Perfect,” Thor said.“Look there.”He pointed into the goat pen, where two kids trailed the half dozen shaggy adults.

“I like how you think,” Volstagg said.“I’ve not had roasted meat since…the last Ortheia Festival, I’d guess.”

“Something wrong, Athenian?” Hogun asked Loki.

“You steal food?” he asked.He couldn’t keep the judgement from his voice.

“Of course,” Fandral said.The Spartans exchanged looks with Thor, who shook his head.

“They’re helots, Loki,” Thor said.“It’s their job to feed us.”

“But look at her,” Loki said.“You are nobles, and they have nothing.At least offer to pay for it.”They looked shocked at his suggestion.

“We can’t do that,” Fandral told him.“The point of the exercise is to take it without getting caught.”

“What happens if you get caught?” Loki asked.

“Tyr gives you a flogging,” Hogun said in his flat, grim voice.“Until you come of age.Then it’s execution, or exile.”

“I don’t think this is right,” Loki said.

“Then you should go home,” Volstagg said.“And let us get on with it.I’m hungry, and we’re having goat.”

“Loki, just wait here,” Thor said.“He can have some out of my share,” Thor said to placate his friends’ sharp stares.Loki did not miss his eyes darting, almost guiltily, toward the sun overhead.

“No,” Fandral said.“If he wants to eat, he has to help.”The other two nodded, and Thor looked at Loki, outvoted.

“Fine,” he said.“Let’s just get it over with.”

 

The Spartans crept closer to the hut and Loki followed.One thing that had improved was his ability to mimic Thor’s light step, and he covered his silver owl with his hand to keep it from flashing.He also took comfort from it, asking his mother to watch over him as he undertook his first criminal action.Soon they crouched just outside the fence, and Loki’s eyes watered at the heavy stench of manure.Thor pointed to his own eye and then at Loki.Loki nodded to him and Thor pointed to the back door of the house.All he had to do was keep watch.He settled in while the Spartans circled and ignored the thick mud oozing between his toes.

He monitored the house and listened for any change in the sounds that came from within.He could still hear the listless crying of a baby and he could follow the woman’s position by the volume of her monotonous lullabye as she paced from one end of the house to the other.

He tried not to watch the Spartans at all, as though he would be blameless if he did not see what they did.Something tugged his chiton and snuffled behind him and Loki turned on his heel to find he was off balance and faced with the largest goat.Though it only came up to his thigh, the animal showed no fear and stared at Loki with malevolent slotted eyes that seemed to know what he was doing.Loki had seen goats before, but only on festival days, drugged and docile so they would not cause bad omens as they went to the temples for slaughter.

“Nice goat,” he whispered, aware even as he did that it was absurd to plead with the creature.It bellowed a human-like battle cry in his face and butted him in the knee with its curling horns.Loki’s leg went out from under him and he stumbled in the muck.His attacker reared up and butted him again while he was down.On the other side of the pen, he saw Volstagg and Fandral both make a grab for the kid they had chosen for lunch, but it darted away from them and ran for its mother.The whole herd raced back and forth in their pen, and their bleating and the jangle of bells made an incredible amount of noise.Loki got ahold of the fence and staggered up as Pan’s avenger backed off for another charge.The woman stood in her back door holding a clay jug and a rag as though she’d forgotten what she needed them for.

“Hylas!” she called.“Hecate!”Two black dogs, each bigger than the ram, loped around from the front of the house.The woman traded her jug for a stout staff as thick as Loki’s wrist, and she seemed more than willing to use it if they let her.

“Scatter!” Thor ordered.The four Spartans ran, each on a different path, and the dogs chased after them.Thor hopped the fence next to him and grabbed Loki by the arm.The ram butted him as well, but Thor absorbed the hit and dragged Loki away from the house.Even the clatter of its hooves could not mask the bark of laughter that startled out of the grim farmwife’s mouth, and the sound seemed to strike Thor like a blow, but he still ran.The goat chased them until they reached another fence at the other end of the farm, and Thor almost threw Loki over it.The goat yelled at them one last time and trotted off back to Tartarus.

“She laughed at us,” he said.He seemed to speak to himself, disbelief in his voice.They retreated to the wild lands off the dirt road, out of sight of the farms.

“More at me, really,” Loki admitted.“I got beaten up by a goat, Thor.”

“Not even a big goat,” Thor agreed.His silent, stony face cracked and Loki heard the rare sound of Spartan laughter.He wanted to be angry, and the shame still burned in him, but he couldn’t resist.Soon they both had to sit down, laughing so hard that Loki’s sides burned and Thor shook without making any sound.Every time one of them stopped, the other gasped out “goat” and it set them off again.

When Thor got himself un control, he sat up and wiped the water off his face.He and Loki had another near miss, but they looked away from each other and choked down the rising tide of hysteria.

“Come on,” Thor said.“Let’s regroup with the others.”

“Do we have to?” Loki asked.He instantly wished he could take the words back; just because he’d gotten Thor to laugh didn’t mean he would suddenly choose Loki over his life-long friends.

“I do,” Thor said after a moment.“I owe them.”

“You weren’t the one who insisted I come,” Loki pointed out.

“No.But I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it.”Thor didn’t even sound angry or disappointed, only resigned to Loki’s inevitable failure.

“She needed that goat,” Loki tried to explain.“She came out to get milk for the baby.If you took the little goat, the milk might dry up.”Everything Loki knew about farming came from Hesiod or the yearly Hymns to Demeter, but he’d seen the milk jug and the sop rag and he knew he was right about the woman at the farm.

“Athens must be a very different sort of place,” Thor said.

“It is.You will see, next summer.”Loki could only imagine trying to fit Thor into his life back home, but at least when Athenians mistreated the poor he didn’t have to look them in the face and know he would be responsible for a starving baby.

Thor held up his hand and Loki fell silent.He strained to hear what had caught Thor’s attention, and soon heard something moving through the undergrowth toward them.Fear shot through him and he thought they might need to run again.He hadn’t fared well against a domesticated goat, and he had learned since he was a child that the woods were full of wild animals.Thor, however, grinned and pulled out his belt knife, a blade little longer than his middle finger.

“Perfect,” he mouthed.He moved into the trees and Loki followed as well as he could.A herd of wild pigs snuffled through a nearby clearing, and one doomed animal rooted only an armspan away from Thor.The Spartan showed no hesitation as he launched himself onto the young sow.He pinned the pig and cut its throat in one smooth, expert motion, and her dying squeal and the scent of her blood sent the rest of the herd running.Loki had never seen an animal die up close and he stood, shocked, as Thor put the pig, still kicking, in his arms.He jumped back, but gore still ran down his arms and dotted his battered chiton.

“Hold it by the feet,” Thor instructed.“Nothing to catch the blood in, so we will have to waste it.”Loki felt sick but he did as Thor instructed, holding the carcass as far away as he could while Thor got a small fire started and shaved some sticks into spits.When he was ready, he took the pig back from Loki and butchered it in the grass.

“Is this acceptable?”Thor asked him.“Do I need to pay somebody for the meat or can you eat it without impiety?”Thor used the archaic word for “religious pollution”, the kind caused by murder and blasphemy, and although Loki knew he was being mocked, it seemed Thor understood his guilt better than he had let on.

“It’s fine,” Loki managed to say.“But we should thank Dionysus for sending it to us.”He put his nose up, but he smiled so Thor would see.Thor flung the entrails and other inedible parts off into the deeper woods and wiped his hands and arms on the grass until they were cleaner.The clearing soon filled with the sweet and gamey scent of the pig roasting, and Thor’s friends rejoined them when it was nearly ready to eat.

“You see, Volstagg?Meat is on the menu after all.”

“Great.I’m hungry enough to eat a buzzard.”Volstagg sat down as far from Loki as he could get, and Hogun and Fandral sat with him.“Did the gods tell your father he would be some sort of blessing?Because he seems a total fucking disaster so far.”They did not even bother to glare at Loki, acting as if he were not even present, but they all clearly agreed.

“Loki killed the pig for us,” Thor said.

“He did?”

“I did?”They all looked at him, and the blood dried on his arms and clothes, and he thought Thor might have winked at him.“I mean, yes, Thor helped me but we killed this wild pig while you were running away from a lady with a stick and two dogs.”They looked from him to Thor, but the prince’s face gave nothing away.Loki could tell they didn’t buy it, but they were unwilling to call Thor on the lie.Lunch passed in an awkward truce.Loki took only a few bites of the meat and passed the rest to the others.Thor nodded his approval of the friendly gesture, but Loki found it impossible to eat without hearing the pig die, and the flesh was greasy and unevenly cooked.

The Spartans ate everything he left behind, even cracking the bones to get the marrow.Loki looked away into the thin forest and tuned out their conversations, queasy and uninterested in the progress of the class without Thor.He thought about the gods instead, and wondered if this little wild pig was the fearsome boar he had seen when he first met Thor.

“What should we do now?” Volstagg asked.

“We could try to sneak into the girls’ barracks,” Fandral suggested.“You could get another look at Sif.”

“Have you forgotten what happened the last time?”Thor snorted.“We should spar.I haven’t had a good fight since I thrashed Tyndareus.”Loki hoped they would.He lightly touched his owl and thanked his mother for her intervention in that fight.An afternoon of watching Thor wrestle someone else would be safe and not entirely boring.

“I know where we should go,” Hogun said.The other three looked to him with deference; Loki had noticed that they took his rare words seriously.“I had dinner with my father last night,” he said, “And he told me that the Gerousia had been to visit Telemon and his wife.”

“They had their baby?” Thor asked.

“A boy,” Hogun continued, and Loki had to listen hard to catch everything he said.“Born with a crooked spine.We could go up and see it.”

“Right after lunch?” Volstagg complained.

“You could use the hike,” Fandral shot back.“We’ve been wanting to go up there for ages, and who knows when we will be free again?I’m with Hogun.”

“I didn’t think there was anything you would pick over the chance to see some girls running,” Volstagg said.

“Thor is right.I do still have the scars from last time.Are you in, or do you want to go back to Tyr and see what he wants to do all afternoon?”

“I’m in.Come on, Thor.”

“We can’t take Loki up there,” Thor said.

“Up where?” Loki asked.Not that he wanted to see a deformed baby, but how bad could it be?

“It’s sacred.Like a place from one of your stories,” Thor said.He looked torn, and even frightened of the place himself.“Besides,” he said, shaking his head as if to clear it, “The hike is another labor of Herakles.We’d have to climb Mount Taugetos.”He pointed north, and though the trees hid it, Loki knew he meant the great mountain that towered over Sparta.

“He doesn’t have to come,” Fandral pointed out.“He can go home and help with the weaving while we have our adventure.”

“No,” Loki said.“I want to come.”He would not point out to the barefoot Spartans that his sandals were not meant for hiking, or that they had no food and only two small water skins.It was only a long walk to see something unimpressive, and Loki would rather put up with that than find out if Thor would leave him behind. 

He had cause to regret his decision as they climbed, though the going was not so rough as he had feared.The path out of the city was steep, but it was a path, winding up through the hilly farms and scattered villages outside the city’s precincts.Thor set a difficult pace but made sure Loki never got too far behind.He acted as though he could not see the growing impatience of his friends, but their looks at Loki were far from friendly.The summit stood in the distance and never seemed to get closer.

Thor turned onto a smaller path with a more level grade and they walked along a rocky plateau.A steep hill rose to their left, studded with scrubby, wind-warped trees, and to their right the ground fell away, though Loki couldn’t tell if it was a slope or a cliff.The sun beat down on them and nothing threw any shade, not even their own shadows, but a chill wind pricked the hairs on Loki’s arms.It offered him no refreshment, only a stern and single warning: this was a bad place.The cold did not touch his companions, but they fell silent as they continued on as though they felt it too.Loki held his silver owl and offered a silent prayer for protection, though he didn’t know from what.

The path ended at an exposed cliff.Loki could feel that there was no ground beyond the flat rocks and crumbling red soil at the edge, only open air for a fatal distance.The cold intensified until it nearly burned him, but he followed Thor over some invisible barrier and it vanished as suddenly as it came over him.The sun warmed the clammy sweat on his body once again, but Loki wanted to leave.

“There,” Hogun pointed.A trio of vultures hunched over something at the edge of the cliff, squawking and squabbling and hiding whatever they had from view.Information began to click together in Loki’s mind, and he knew he didn’t want to see what the carrion birds were eating.

The Spartans drove the birds off with well-aimed stones, though they only flew off a few lazy spans and sat in the low trees.They watched the boys like they would know them when they found them lying dead on some battlefield in the future with nothing to protect their eyes.

“You don’t have to look,” Thor said, pitched low for Loki alone to hear.He and the other Spartans approached the edge and Loki hung back as they talked in hushed tones.Loki thought he heard something else beyond their voices and the sigh of the wind which carried any smell away from them, like the baby in the farmhouse but higher.The desperate sound was faint and hard to place, so much so that Loki wasn’t sure he heard it at all, and against his will he crossed the space between himself and the Spartans.

The baby had been dead for some time, but Loki still heard it crying.There was little of it left on the rocks now that the scavengers had been at it, just a few pathetic scraps of flesh and a dark smear on the dusty stone.If it hadn’t been for the tiny ribs that lay exposed and the phantom wailing that only he could hear, he might have been able to believe it wasn’t a human corpse.Loki swallowed hard and felt as though everything inside him had turned to cold water.

“You killed it?He asked.He knew Thor and his warriors hadn’t done it, but he accused them along with the Spartan Elders and everyone else who should have known better.

“It would never have survived,” Thor said.“I told you not to look.”

“The Elders saw it was weak and could never be a Spartan,” Hogun explained.“They brought it here for the gods to judge.”

“You bring babies here to kill them?” Loki hated how he sounded, like a child younger than Balder, but this just would not add up, and the crying was a constant distraction.

“Not just unfit children,” Fandral told him.He put his hands on Loki’s shoulders and steered him away from the pathetic little corpse.With it out of sight, he drew a shaky breath, but they were still stepping closer to the crumbling edge of the cliff.“They bring criminals up here for execution,” he continued.Loki could see the ravine below them now, full of sharp stones, and the bone-scattered bank of a stream flowing toward the Eurotas.He felt he stood at the very edge and a rush of vertigo left him dizzy.“And you know who else?Deserters.Cowards.Cowards like you.”With the last word, he shoved Loki forward and the ground tipped out from under him.Everything went white and he seemed to fall up into the sky as much as down, but the noise was the worst.He heard the screaming and wailing of countless condemned babies, grieving mothers, and all the dishonored dead of Laconia who had lain here unburied.It felt like a gate into Hades itself had opened in his mind, and he screamed along with the lost souls who clutched at him.

“Loki?Loki?” Thor shook him.The white bled out of his vision and he returned to himself, but he still couldn’t speak.Tears ran down his face and his throat burned from screaming.

“What the fuck did you do, Fandral?” Thor rounded on him, but did not let go of Loki.

“I was just messing with him,” Fandral said.“Look, he’s miles away from the edge and I didn’t push him that hard.He fell over on his own.He was being…” but even Fandral bit back the word “baby” here in this place.“…Being ridiculous,” he finished after a pause.Loki had reoriented enough that the sky and ground were back in the right places and he could feel his body curled on a flat stone.He sat up, but he still felt if he tried to talk he would vomit, or start screaming again.He held the silver owl and shut his eyes.

“What is the matter with you?” Thor asked.Loki opened his eyes and saw Thor looking back at him, the blue of his gaze clouded with confusion and even fear.Then another wave of dizziness washed over him and he saw Thor’s face overlaid with another vision, of the blonde prince lying pale and crumpled in bloody armor, his dead eyes staring vacant as his soul vanished into the realm of Hades.Loki shook his head violently to banish the omen this place of death had sent him, digging the heels of his hands into his eye sockets until red and white stars burst inside his eyelids.

“What’s wrong with me?What’s wrong with you?Why would you ever want to come here?Why does this place even exist?”He could still feel tears running down his face and could do nothing to stop them.Thor still looked more puzzled than anything else, but he could tell the other three were thinking less kindly about him, having a hystrionic fit over nothing.Shamed burned through him and kindled into anger.

“Calm down, Loki, we are leaving…”

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” Loki shouted into Thor’s face.He scrambled to his feet and lurched away from the cliff.He plowed through the same invisible barrier and ran down the mountain side, picking up speed as he pitched down the steep path. 

He came to a stop in the shade of some woods just off the road and sat against a tree until his breath no longer hitched and the last lingering chill of his encounter with Mount Taugetos had left him.He jumped at the familiar sound of a goat bell, but then allowed himself a brief, bitter laugh.It was only a docile, sure-footed animal grazing near him with no interest in Loki himself at all.He got up and dusted himself off, and tried to think of what to do. 

 

He walked alone, longing to get revenge, to make Thor look stupid in front of his stupid friends, and when Loki came to the river, he had an idea of how.This was likely the Eurotas itself, according to his tutor back home, though like many things around here it failed to impress him.It was wide and muddy with a steep, weed-strewn bank, and while it looked still he could see a swifter current running in the middle.He walked along the dusty edge of the drop off until he came to a shallow area before a bend where rocks poked up from the water.Just out of sight he could hear the gurgle of rapids or a small waterfall, but this was ideal.

Loki hopped with nimble ease across the uneven rock bridge until he came to a large, flat stone near the middle of the river.He jumped a few times to make sure it was stable and, when he was satisfied, he sat down.He unpinned his mother’s silver owl from his shoulder and secured it inside his tunic, out of sight.Trailing his feet in the water to cool off, he waited.

It didn’t take them long to find him, but Loki heard them coming, the sound of their conversation carrying well over the water.With a hard little smile on his face, he summoned some quick tears (a useful skill with two older brothers) and crouched on the rock, splashing as though he was searching for something.

“Loki!What are you doing?” Thor called from the bank.

“Careful, Thor, you know how maidens get when you catch them bathing!”

“Shut it, Fandral.What if he needs help?”

“Don’t come crying to me when you get torn apart by your own hounds, then, if you want to win points with yon milk-white virgin.”

“Loki!Are you stuck?Come back, the river isn’t safe!”Loki made a show of fruitless scrabbling, trying to resist the urge to overact this farce.With feigned reluctance, he slowly picked his way back to shore as if it were difficult and frightening to step from stone to stone.Thor clapped a hand on his shoulder as soon as he was back on the shore and Loki looked down, scrubbing a dripping knuckle over his eyes as though to hide his tears.Thor’s friends snickered, but when Loki looked up he saw only concern on Thor’s face.He had him exactly where he wanted him.“What’s wrong?Are you hurt?”

“I…I went in the water to cool off and I…I lost my mother’s brooch.I can’t find it!”Loki worried he was overdoing this, but Thor looked away, scanning the river as if he would see the missing jewelry.“Please…It’s all I have of hers.My father…” he trailed off, faked a stifled sob, and relished the small hard weight of the owl safe in his tunic.

“I’ll get it for you,” Thor said, his jaw set hard like he was facing an army and not a shallow river.“Stay here.”Thor turned and started over the rocks, not following the same path, while Loki stood with Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg and watched.He waited for them to start on him again now that Thor wasn’t here to try to moderate, but they were watching Thor’s progress intently.Excellent.He hoped they saw him look like a fool in perfect detail.

Thor was not light on his feet.He made his halting way out over the water wanting to stop and put his full weight and balance on each stone before moving to the next.He was scanning back and forth, looking for a glint of silver in the murky water, and had nearly reached the big stone when he fell.One heavy step slid on a slick, pointed rock and instead of skipping to the next, he teetered off balance for a moment, arms thrown out, and plunged face first into the river.Loki clapped his hand over his mouth to keep from cackling.He looked subtly at his Spartan rivals to see if they caught it, hoping they would see only a gesture of surprise, but they were frowning at each other and staring grimly at the water.Loki looked back, irritated at their lack of reaction.He’d been hoping they might turn some of their derision against Thor for a change.It did seem to be taking his Spartan host an inordinately long time to surface.Maybe he was looking along the bottom for the owl?

Loki was really starting to get annoyed when Thor finally came up several arm spans away from where he’d gone in.He started to smirk, but it died on his face when he realized Thor was drowning.He had seen it before; there was no mistaking it.Thor was caught in the current, doing nothing effective to move himself toward shore.Loki thought he could see blood on his face.

“He can’t _swim_?” Loki demanded of Thor’s friends.He couldn’t believe it.These people would hand a dagger to a baby threatened by wild dogs and the prince couldn’t swim?Thor’s friends, all pale and silent, shook their heads no.“Can’t any of you swim?”Again, no.The sound of Thor splashing was rapidly dwindling as he was swept away, blending in with the sound of the waterfall.Loki gave them what he hoped was a truly withering look, one that would make his father proud, but he didn’t have the time or breath to waste.He took off down the bank, stepping high and falling into his fastest pace as he sprinted after Thor.

He’d thought he couldn’t run ever again after taking the punishment of a week with Spartans, but perhaps the gods were with him.He couldn’t feel the soreness in his legs or lungs and, although his thoughts had faded away, he knew he’d never run so fast, not even on a level track.He tracked Thor by his bright hair and tried to watch for the branches and holes that sought his ankles. Maybe he should pray, but the only words that filled his head were part of a steady string of inventive profanity.Loki at last caught a break as Thor went around a steep bend, letting him get ahead at last.The waterfall was visible now, the noise of it a constant roar over his shoulder.Thor was low in the water, his mouth barely above the surface, and Loki realized he had only heartbeats to get to him and get him out before he went under for good, or over the falls.He didn’t think, just dove in and began to swim.No different than swimming with his brothers at Piraeus, he tried to tell himself, though the water was cool and murky.His reluctance to lose sight of Thor made it difficult to get a good stroke going, especially against the current, but he got another bit of luck when Thor caught on something, a log or a rock along the bottom, and Loki was able to reach him.

Thor was barely conscious but he seized Loki with a firm grip, shoving him under in his own desperation to breathe.Loki could have wept with frustration; their inexorable progress toward the waterfall had not slowed, and he thought he would survive going over but wouldn’t have bet on Thor’s odds.He dove straight down and Thor let go.Loki came up behind him and got him under the arms just as Thor’s face sank into the river.Loki took a deep breath and tried to kick toward shore, but Thor’s dead weight in his arms forced him to use all his strength just to stay in the same place.

“Kick your legs, you pig fucking son of a Laconian whore,” he hissed in Thor’s ear.“Help me or we are both going to die out here.” 

“Let go,” Thor gurgled.At least that’s what it sounded like.Possibly ‘don’t let go’.Loki kicked harder but he still couldn’t get out of the current and back to the shallows.

“I am not letting go!Now think of all the barnyard animals you’ve yet to violate and kick your fucking legs!” Thor spasmed with what might have been generously called a kick before lapsing back into semi-consciousness.Loki wanted to scream.He could feel them slipping closer to the falls, and there was still no sign of the other Spartans coming to their aid.He slid one arm out from under Thor for extra power, but it still wasn’t enough.Thor’s face slipped back into the water and he panicked, seizing onto Loki with a desperate grip.Loki went under for a moment himself, cool water burning his nose and filling his mouth with the taste of mud.Loki kicked frantically to keep them both from sinking, the falls only a few arm spans away now.He could slip out of Thor’s grip and probably make it, but the prince would surely die. _If any of you can hear me,_ he prayed, _I’ll do whatever you want, just get us out of this.Please._ He thought he had never prayed so desperately.He wanted to see the Acropolis again, and eat decent food, but more than that he could not leave his crazy Spartan Achilles to die in a stupid river.He was responsible for him. 

In the span of two kicks, a strange breeze blew up around them.On the bank a scrubby, narrow tree swayed and toppled into the water, its roots still embedded in the slope and its branches only inches from Loki’s outstretched arm.Loki grabbed it and steadied them, then pulled them an arm length at a time into the shallows. He dug his toes in with a sense of profound gratitude to whichever god was watching over them and dragged Thor toward the bank.

“You can stand up now,” he told Thor hopefully.His shoulder felt wrenched on that side and he wanted to stretch it out.Thor remained limp, even his hold on Loki slackening as he no longer fought the river for breath.Muttering profanities, he lurched out of the water dragging Thor with no respect for their dignity.He wrestled Thor up the slope with the last of his strength and dumped him on his back in the dust before falling beside him.He felt drained and loose from the exertion, and the hot sun dried the water running down his legs almost before it could drip.

“Thor?” he asked.He had little concern left for the prince, but it worried him that he hadn’t spoken.It felt like a labor of Herakles, but he rose to his knees to examine Thor.He lay just as Loki had dropped him, eyes shut, looking wet and miserable.Blood ran in diluted rivulets down his face from a cut near the hairline.“Thor!”Loki slapped him lightly, hoping to rouse him.

Thor’s impossible blue eyes fluttered open and Loki realized he’d been holding his breath.Thor looked at him and jerked as though he’d been struck, staring in an awe-struck daze at something just to the left of Loki’s face.

“…When he set free the power of his mighty voice and the words drifted down like the winter snows, no mortal man could stand against Odysseus…” Thor’s voice was weak but his diction was quite clear, rasping out the lines from the third book of the Iliad like it was the most important thing he’d ever said.

“Stop it!” Loki slapped him again and Thor’s eyes slowly cleared, leaving him blinking at Loki, lucid but confused.“What was that about?”Thor only shook his head for a moment before turning over with a sudden lunge, puking lake water violently onto a bush.Loki sighed and sat back down, letting the sun warm his aching body as Thor retched.Finally he stopped and wiped his mouth with a shaking hand.

“Can you say anything normal yet?” Loki asked.Thor still looked pale and ill but he glared at Loki, fully himself again.

“Did you call me a pig fucker?”

“I called you a lot of things.But I shouldn’t have said that about your mother.She’s been very kind to me.That I take back.”Thor’s only response was a strangled hiccuping sound followed byanother bout of vomiting.Loki absently pulled Thor’s sopping hair away from his face and patted his back gently.He wondered if both of them could even make it back to the palace at this rate.Surely Thor’s useless friends would have to find them.

“I have to go back,” Thor gasped out.

“Don’t be an idiot.You would have died.I’m surprised they let you in a bathtub after that performance.”

“But Loki….your mother’s pin.I promised….”

“I tricked you about that,” Loki admitted.“I never lost it.”

“Then why?”

“I just wanted you to look stupid.I was going to let you splash around and then go out and ‘find’ it myself.See, it’s right…”Loki reached into his clothing to unhook the silver owl and return it to his shoulder but found it absent.He groped around with rising desperation before turning and looking out over the water.He knew what must have happened, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

“Loki?”

“It’s gone.I really lost it.” 

“I’ll get it back.”Thor half rose but Loki shoved him sprawling in the dust.

“It’s gone and it’s your fault!I lost her because of you!”Tears burned down his face and he couldn’t unclench his fists to wipe them away.“I hate you.I hate this whole stupid place and I wish I had let you die!”Thor reached for him but Loki turned and ran, a vague thought of returning to the house and staying in the barn until autumn came and his brother returned his only plan.

 

He had cause to regret leaving the Spartans behind.He was hot and sore and exhausted.He had no food and little sense of where he was going, and even his supply of rage had burned out, leaving him feeling hollow and, if he were honest, a little ashamed.He had prayed for help and the gods had provided.Who was he to complain if they took his owl as repayment?Maybe he even deserved it a little, for tricking Thor.The fields and hills around Sparta passed slowly as he hobbled along, watching for snakes and holes.At last he hit a road that seemed familiar from his trip in and followed it.Even his grief over the pin soon paled before his desire for some water.

When he was convinced he could go no further a farmer rumbled past on a creaking wagon.He pulled to a near halt and gestured for Loki to get on without a word, but the ghost of a smile cracked his face like it wasn’t often seen there.Loki climbed on and spent the next few slow, rattling miles trying to determine for certain if he was the same farmer he’d met on his way here in the first place.

An hour before sunset he limped into the house through the back kitchen door.Frigga was waiting for him.He knew he must be a real mess; his chiton, stained with mud, hung from one shoulder, his skin was tight and red from the sun, and his hair had dried oddly from his swim and then plastered to his face with sweat.Dried blood had run from an assortment of scratches and odd bruises had started to bloom on his skin.She didn’t ask him what had happened, just sat him down at her table and wiped his face with a cool rag.Her servant brought him a tray of bread, sliced thick and spread with soft cheese and honey, and a bowl of savory lentils in broth with a pitcher of water just a bit soured with the harsh Laconian wine.Loki meant to eat just enough to be polite but soon found all the food was gone.Frigga brought him more water and he saw in her cool eyes, the same color as her son’s, that she’d put at least some of the day’s events together. 

“Would you like to tell me what happened?” she asked.

“Didn’t Thor say anything?”

“He hasn’t come home yet.Some nights he doesn’t come home at all.”Loki swallowed hard and tried to convince himself that it didn’t mean anything.He hadn’t abandoned Thor and he was certainly fine.

“I lost my pin,” he said.He found he didn’t want to lie about it, not here.

“A shame.It belonged to your mother, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”Frigga put his water cup closer to his hand and stood behind him.She took a comb from her apron pocket and began gently brushing the tangles out of his hair, humming a wordless and unfamiliar lullaby.Loki sat and tried to think of something else to say.It came upon him all at once, how tired and sore he was, how lonely, and the feeling that he’d lost his mother’s protection completely.Her full and permanent absence from his life crushed him and before he knew it he was crying in great, helpless, gulping sobs.Frigga wrapped her arms around him and pressed him to her chest, warm and soft, and despite his shame he buried his face in her and sobbed harder.She held him close and petted him, still humming, until he cried himself out.

“I’m sure she was lovely,” Frigga told him.She dipped the rag again and wiped his burning face.“She must be so proud of you.”She kissed him, gently, on the forehead.“She’ll never truly be gone, you know.”Frigga hugged him once more and scooted him along toward the steps.

Loki climbed them with a heavy tread and stripped off his filthy clothes.Then he lay on the narrow bed and waited for Hypnos to claim him, because he really wanted this day to be over, and to be asleep when Thor came in.The light dimmed and the shadows went long and violet but his aching body, and his nagging worry, distracted him.The sky outside was indigo and the moon had started her journey when he finally heard Thor arrive downstairs.He breathed a sigh and thought maybe at last he could sleep.He heard Thor creaking up the stairs in near silence and shut his eyes.

“Loki?”Thor either didn’t believe or didn’t care that he was sleeping.He sat on the bed and leaned over Loki.When he opened his eyes, Thor’s face was nearly touching his.

“What do you want, Thor?”

“Do you still hate me?” 

“A little,” Loki told him.Thor sat up and slouched forward like he was every bit as tired as Loki, moonlight glinting off his hair.

“I’m sorry about your pin.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Loki snapped.He took a deep breath and continued.“I’m sorry for tricking you.I didn’t know you would be in danger.”

“I guess it wasn’t either of our best days.I’m sorry about my friends, too.I won’t let them be like that anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter.”Loki’s voice was flat and drained.“I won’t go with you for the rest of the summer.I’ll just hold you back.”

“No!” Thor’s voice was intense, though he kept the volume down.“That’s what I wanted to tell you.You saved my _life_.”

“So what?” _Didn’t I pay enough for it?_ He thought. _What else do you want?_ “Are you trying to thank me?If you are, just get it over with because I’m tired.”

“Well, yes, but…you’re my brother now.”He took Loki’s arm above the wrist and looked at him expectantly.

“I don’t want to be your brother.You’re all crazy, and I have enough of my own.”

“But you are.That’s what the gods want!When you saved me, I saw…I saw you, but more.A vision.I can’t explain it.”

“You hit your head and…” _and you almost died_ , Loki thought, but the words died on his tongue.He didn’t tell Thor about what he’d seen that first day in Sparta.It seemed Thor had no intention of letting go, though, so Loki reluctantly returned his grip.Thor gave his arm a squeeze and Loki for the first time saw his new brother’s dazzling smile.

“I know it’s not the same, but I want you to have this.”Thor pressed something small and heavy into his hand and Loki sat up to examine it.He held up a golden figurine, about the length of his finger, a hoplite in full armor.Beautiful, in an archaic way, and valuable.

“Where did you get this?”

“It was supposed to be my votive for Artemis Orthia when I’m old enough,” Thor told him.He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.“It’s the nicest thing I have and I want you to take it.”

“Won’t you get in trouble?” Loki asked.Thor just shrugged casually, by which Loki understood that he would likely be whipped bloody for losing it.

“Budge over.I feel like a bull kicked me in the chest and I’m sharing the bed tonight.”Loki rolled over against the wall as Thor’s chest pressed warm against his back.He lay in the deepening dark and stared at the golden figure in his palm, feeling like he’d crossed a bridge and could never turn back.

“Did you see something?Up on the mountain?” Thor asked.He was so close that Loki could feel his warm breath in his hair.

“Yes, I did.”

“Something bad?Worse than the baby?”

“Yes.”He could call up the feeling of the dead touching him, if he thought about it, but that seemed far away.But he could not shake the other vision, or the dread it had left within him.

“Are you going to tell me what it was?”

“No.”Loki did not want to make the image of Thor dead on some battlefield any more real by speaking it aloud, nor did he want to sound crazy. 

“Are you…”

“Crazy?Cursed?A witch?” They were all things he heard in Athens, and he couldn’t even feel surprise that they had followed him here.

“No, god-touched.Are you a seer?”

“I guess so.I see things sometimes, and sometimes they come true.And when I pray, sometimes I get what I want.”Or I did, before I lost my only connection to my mother, he thought.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“I’m just good with a sword.And that’s nothing special around here.”Thor wrapped a warm arm over Loki and soon began to snore.Loki lay in the dark a while longer, staring at the wall, until his shoulders relaxed by slow increments and he relaxed into Thor’s touch.

 

Frigga stopped him the next morning on his way out the door.She put a finger to her lips until Thor was far enough ahead, and he nodded back to her.She undid the shoulder of his chiton where he had improvised a pin by tying it with a thin bit of leather, and in its place she fastened the golden fibula from her own gown.It was small and plain, and probably only plated gold if it had survived long use in Sparta, but the line of it was graceful.

“I can’t…” he started to say, but she interrupted him.

“I heard what you did.I know I will never replace what you have lost,” she said.“But I have room in my heart for another son.Perhaps my love will protect you, as well.”She brushed a faint, soft kiss over his forehead, pressed his breakfast into his hand, and scooted him after Thor with no time to protest.

Thor’s warriors waited for him at the base of the path, and his heart sank at the thought of all the weeks he still had to go.He ate his bread and tried not to let his his heavy steps show how tired and sore his body was, or how much he didn’t want to talk to them.

“Is he coming with us?” Hogun asked.

“Yes,” Thor said.He looked awful in the strengthening sunlight, pale and stiff, and every few moments he stifled a cough behind his hand.

“ Where can we go that he won’t end up crying?” Fandral teased.Thor vanished in a blur of motion and in a few seconds of swift, economical violence he had his friend pinned on the ground.Blood ran from Fandral’s nose and he stared in shock at Thor’s cocked fist hovering over his face.

“Loki is my brother,” Thor said.“As much as any of you are.We will teach him what he needs to learn, and if he can’t learn it, we will protect him.Do you understand?”Thor’s voice was low and rasping, but it made him sound older and more menacing.Fandral nodded first, and the Hogun and Volstagg did the same.Thor stood and Fandral took the hand up that he offered.

“I am sorry for the way I behaved,” Fandral said, with a small stiff bow.He offered Loki his hand as Thor had done the night before.Loki doubted it would make any difference, but Thor seemed so eager to see it done that Loki clasped hands with his rivals, one after another, and so Loki acquired three more Spartan brothers than he’d bargained for.

When Fandral’s nose had stopped bleeding, they set off on their morning run.Though the day was still cool and the air sweet with dew, perfect for running, Thor soon had to stop when a coughing fit overtook him.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, and they pressed on at a slower pace, but the second fit came even sooner than the first, and soon they gave up on running altogether.Although he worried about Thor, his weakened lungs gave Loki the most pleasant day he had known in Sparta.Thor and his warriors gave him a leisurely tour of the city, and he even made up a little for the goat incident the day before by pocketing some pomegranates off a fruit stall in the market.

“But where are the walls?” he asked as they ate in the shade by a public fountain.It had been bothering him since he arrived; in Athens the upkeep of the massive land walls caused a yearly bout of arguing over the expense, but the decision to pay it always passed.

“We are the walls,” Thor said.He’d been quiet for much of the morning, letting Fandral and Volstagg do most of the talking.His color had improved once they had gotten him to sit down in the shade and rest, but his face still looked tight and dull with exhaustion.“The men of Sparta.”

“The women are not to be underestimated either,” Fandral said.In Athens this would have been a joke, but the Spartans nodded assent.Loki kept them talking with questions, anything that came to mind, so that Thor would keep resting, and he thought his companions had probably not spoken so many words at once in years.When he could not stall Thor any further, they continued around the outskirts of the city and ended their tour on a grassy hilltop near the palace.The Spartans laid their red drapes out on the ground and stretched out, looking at the bright stars.Thor did not speak, but he made room on his for Loki with a smile.His stomach fluttered and he hoped the evening was dim enough to cover the blush that burned his cheeks, but he stretched out next to Thor and relished the warmth of his body so close to his own.

“They like to be scared,” Thor whispered in his ear.“Tell them about the bull-man.”Loki smiled without turning around.

“Loki, what do they call that small constellation in Athens?” Thor said in his normal voice.“The one there by Herakles?”

“That’s the Crown of Ariadne,” Loki said.Thor was not the best liar, but Loki was surprised he had paid enough attention to him before to give him such a perfect opening.“Dionysus hung it in the stars to commemorate her.Would you like to know why?It’s a very popular story in Athens.”

“I would,” Thor said, and so Loki began the story of King Minos’ daughter for a new audience.Although the warriors fidgeted and whispered at the start, Loki lavished detail on poor mad Pasiphae in her cow costume going down to the stable yard to seduce the bull, and they fell quiet.They snickered at the Minotaur’s hunger for Athenian flesh, but when he described the doomed boys and girls wandering in the endless labyrinth, he could hear their breath quicken and knew they could feel the monster’s hot, foul breath in the warm summer air.He stopped the story with Theseus still trapped in the maze and hinted that Ariadne’s trick might not be enough to save him, and refused to tell more that night.He had learned from the tale-tellers back home that it was wise to draw out the story, to keep your audience coming back.

He and Thor said goodnight to the Warriors Three and headed home in the moonlight.Thor put an arm over Loki’s narrow shoulders and walked close to him, and spent another night close to him on the bed.

His days in Sparta passed quickly after that, difficult at times but with their own sweetness, until one hot day in late summer his brother arrived to fetch him home.Helblindi did not say anything, but Loki saw his eyes go wide and knew he must have changed in the weeks he’d spent in Laconia.Though still pale, his skin had bronzed in the sun and his hair had grown shaggy.The clothes he’d brought with him had been ruined with sweat and dirt and mending, and though he still mourned his lost owl pin, he had felt much less need to call upon his mother’s aid.

“I will see you in Athens,” Thor said.“Next summer.Learn new stories.”

“And what will you be doing?” Loki asked.

“I’m going to get faster.I will outrun you, next time we race.”

“No you won’t.You will never outrun me, Son of Odin.”

“We will see,” Thor said.They clasped hands again and Thor surprised him by pulling him close.For a moment he thought he would end up on the ground, as he had at their first meeting, but Thor only hugged him for a single crushing instant, then turned away as though it had not happened.

**Author's Note:**

> So, literally translated, Hellenikon means "the Greek thing".
> 
> The first layer is just me taking a dig at myself for the way I hate giving things a title, since the original working title on this basically was "the Greek thing" when I started.
> 
> Secondly, in context, "Hellenikon" was a term coined (as far as we know) by Herodotus in his Histories to refer to the unique qualities of Greek people and culture. What's revolutionary about it is that he was talking about a uniting force that could bind all the people of the Greek world together against a common enemy, giving them a sense of loyalty to a larger conception of what it meant to be "Greek" over and above their loyalty to their individual polis, or city state. Not that the city-states ever stopped fighting with each other, but the history of the entire Western world would be so different if they hadn't managed to find enough common ground to fight together against Persia. (No golden age Athens, no Alexander, probably no Rome...it keeps going like dominos.)
> 
> Third, you know what he said created this feeling of essential Greek-ness? The Persian Invasion, and the Battle of Marathon. Which is what this story is about.


End file.
